#i did love vertigo though. i did. and i always love fast car

[adelle-ein]

every year spotify wrapped just confuses the hell out of me. what is "pov: indie" (why not just indie????) what is "alt z." what the fuck is "hopebeat," is it like "indie poptimism." and where is provo

[justjessame]

Starting Over Chapter 43

I came back to my senses hearing an argument - ok maybe that was too strong of a word.  I came back to a disagreement or a debate going on about what to do about ME.

“She’s unconscious,” Bucky’s voice sounded so tense and strained that I KNEW I had to tell him I was FINE.  I had to or he was going to do something silly like - and I felt him start to lift me.  “I should take her to the hospital.”

Sarah’s sigh was so damn loud and heavy that I had a feeling the debate had been going strong for a while.  “Brooke’s gonna be fine,” I felt warmth, softer than Bucky’s on my hand.  “Look down, Bucky, her eyes are starting to twitch.”  

And they were, because I knew I’d rather NOT go for an unscheduled trip to a Louisiana ER over a fainting for nothing more than being freaked out over the possibility that I MIGHT be pregnant.  Groaning, because I couldn’t really speak yet, damn passing out really takes it out of a girl - I could feel Bucky’s tension relax a bit.  

“Brooke?”  His lips brushed my temple and I fought to open my eyes - finally getting the damn things open so I could calm him down completely.  “Oh, thank GOD.”  He exhaled so loudly that it startled me.  Bucky Barnes LOUD.  “Are you alright?”  

“Yeah,” I croaked out, feeling like I’d love to be vertical.  “Could you help me sit up though?”  He nodded and got me up, seated on his lap since he clearly wasn’t ready to let me go just yet.  Vertigo sucks, and sitting up had my stomach feeling far TOO full.  I guess I turned a shade of green because Sam was handy with a bucket and THANK FUCK HE WAS because my head buried straight into it and - let’s just say I didn’t get to keep most of what I ate.  

I couldn’t actually HEAR the debate/argument/disagreement restart, not while I was emptying my stomach, but I knew it had restarted.  As Bucky held me, his hand on my back - rubbing soothingly - the rest of him was as tense as when I came to.  Once I felt safe to pull my head OUT of the bucket, and that GOD that moment came because EW - I begged them all to stop.

“Stop,” it got quiet, the trio above me staring down, even Bucky who was holding me still had a height advantage.  “Please.”  I was exhausted.  From stuffing food into me, passing out, and then this - “Could we just not.”  

“You’re sick,” Bucky insisted, and his always a little cooler left hand brushed my sweaty hair off of my clammy face.  “I knew something was off today.”  

“I’m fine,” I assured him.  He looked more than ready to argue, but I shook my head and managed to get both of my hands up to cup his face.  “I am, Bucky.  I just need to lie down and rest for a little bit.”  

Sarah told him to take me back to the hotel, a nap and the air conditioning might be just what I need to sort me out.  “Go,” she pressed, assuring both of us that we hadn’t ruined the party.  “Like a little fainting and puking could ruin one of our parties.” 

Sam laughed and moved the sick bucket away.  “Trust me, this isn’t half of what this bucket’s gonna see before the end of the night.”  I cringed.  “Come on, Buck, let me help you get Brooke to the car.”  

Bucky didn’t need Sam’s help to physically get me to the car, but he was helpful in clearing the path for him.  And opening up the car for us once we got there.  Bucky insisted on buckling me in, and on checking my clamming ass skin again and trying to convince me to let him take me to the hospital or a clinic - sighing I asked him to make ONE stop.  

“A pharmacy?”  He pulled out onto the street after we’d said our goodbyes to Sam, promising him to call if we needed him.  And that we’d come by before we headed back to New York.  “What do you need?  Something for your stomach?”  

I considered whether I felt strong enough to go in and grab it myself, but honestly I was clamming and gross and a little weak still.  I could have asked Sarah - had her pick it up and have it ready and waiting for me to take before we headed home, but I hadn’t thought of it.  I’d have to tell him eventually - ESPECIALLY if it came out positive.  

“Brooke?”  He was parking in the lot of the pharmacy.  Damn small town.  “What do you need?”  

Taking a deep breath, I turned to face him and saw how concerned he looked.  “Don’t freak out, OK?”  He looked confused, but wasn’t more tense, so I went on.  “I need a pregnancy test.”  

Normally I was the blinker in our relationship.  But my request made Bucky the blinker for once.  And he stared at me and blinked. And blinked, and then squinted and opened his mouth like he wanted to ask something, but his mouth snapped shut and he blinked some more.  

“Bucky?”  He was staring at me, but I wasn’t sure he was SEEING me anymore.  “Buck?”  

“A pregnancy test?” It came out in a breath and I nodded.  “You need a pregnancy test?”  Another nod.  “OK.” He wasn’t moving, and his eyes were squinting again.  

“Bucky?”  Dear God, did I finally break him?  “Should I go in?”  

That snapped him out of it.  “No,” he blinked out of whatever fog he’d gone into with my request for a test.  “No, Brooke, I’ll go.”  He started to get out and stopped.  “Is there a certain -” he considered what word to use.  “Model I should get?”   

I shook my head.  “No, I think they all work the same.”  I had no fucking clue.  I’d never had use for them.  “Maybe more than one?”  

It was his turn to nod.  “OK.”  He started to go again, but stopped and turned back to me.  “I love you, Brooke.”  I smiled, and he leaned over to kiss me, but I stopped him.  “What?”  

“Vomit breath, Buck.”  I offered him my cheek.  “Trust me, we can wait until I brush my teeth.”  He chuckled, but kissed my cheek.  Then he went off to buy multiple pregnancy tests.

When we got back to the hotel, it took all of my powers of persuasion to talk Bucky into letting me WALK to our room.  He gave in only when I consented to letting him wrap his arm around me, in case I got another case of the fainting violets.  The bag he brought to the car from the pharmacy was a tad bigger than I’d expected for a ‘couple’ tests, and when we were in our room finally I learned why.

He tossed them out and I prayed to a higher power that I could keep my eyes in their sockets.  James Buchanan Barnes had gone into that pharmacy, asked the nearest salesperson for help, and then proceeded to BUY EVERY SINGLE FUCKING TEST THAT HE FOUND.  Every single one.  

“I wasn’t sure, and they’re all SLIGHTLY different.”  He was standing next to the bed full of tests waiting for my reaction.  

My God, how did I find him?  This amazing human being who would go to these lengths after being scared shitless in the car when I asked for ONE?  I moved closer and groaned.  Making his face drop like he’d done a horrible thing.  “NO, Bucky -” I wanted to smack myself.  “Give me one second, please?”  He nodded and I practically sprinted to the bathroom to brush my teeth and gargle away the taste of vomit.  Then I came back to where he was waiting.  “Now, where were we?” 

“I forgot about the vomit breath,” he murmured as I came closer and wrapped my arms around him.  “So I’m not the most ridiculous person you’ve ever met?”  I smiled up at him as he hugged me tighter.  

“Well, you kind of are,” he rolled his eyes.  “But I have a feeling I’m the same for you, so we’re evenly matched.”  His chuckle was well worth the sprint that got the kiss that followed.  When he pulled away, I sighed.  “The ONLY issue with this pile, Bucky Barnes, is -” I turned and he kept his arms wrapped around me.  “Which one do I try FIRST?”  

Randomly picking ONE, I read the instructions and went to the bathroom with the tiny stick to pee on it.  And then we waited.  And waited.  And waited.  

Bucky had moved the spare tests off the bed and we were snuggled on it, and I wanted to know - we had rushed so damn fast into so damn much of our relationship - how HE felt about THIS.

“Bucky?”  He hummed, his fingers were drawing those patterns on my arm that he always seemed to do when we were just holding one another.  “If I AM -” 

“If you ARE,” I could feel his smile, even though his lips weren’t against my skin for once.  “If you ARE, Brooke, then you really are the best dream I never knew to ask for.”  

“Really?”  I looked over my shoulder to see his face and he was smiling, and looking peaceful again.  “Even though it’s so soon?”  

He laughed and kissed me.  “Isn’t that how our story runs?”  The timer on my cell phone chimed and I started to get up, but he stopped me.  “Can I?”  

I bit my lip and nodded.  Another kiss and he got up, letting me sit up against the headboard to wait to see what the verdict was - was I having a mini Bucky or was I just host to a really hungry stomach bug?  

He didn’t come out right away, which freaked me out, and the longer he took the more on edge I got.  What if I was wrong?  What if I’d gotten his hopes up and then NOTHING?  Or what if we are and the reality of it just hit him and he wasn’t as happy with the reality of it as he was with the possibility?  

The toilet flushed and I nearly screamed.  Honestly?  He took a potty break?  But when he came out, his face was blank.  Nothing.  Not good or bad and I was on pins and needles.  

“Well?”  I asked, wondering if I was going to have to jump out of the damn bed and sprint the fuck across the room to the damn bathroom and find out for myself.  

He studied me and tilted his head.  “Are we hoping for a boy or a girl?” 

[talesmaniac89]

A Second too Late

Pairing: Dean x Reader

Summary: As with everything else in his life, Dean realises just a little too late that he loves you, just when you’re lost to him.

Triggers: Heartbreak, angst, unrequited love

Y/E/C = Your Eye Colour | Y/H/C = Your Hair Colour

---

Dean Winchester was always just a split second too late. 

It was the broken, scratched and beaten record of his life. Always one step behind whatever hellish creative torture the world decided to drop on his shoulders next. 

Too late to stop Sammy from getting hurt. Too late to stop his friends from dying. Too late to save the next victim of whatever monster they’d rushed out to kill… Too late to love you.

Sitting numbly in the chair next to yours, Dean could barely hear your words through the white noise in his head. Lost in thought of years spent pretending you were just his best friend. Years spend tricking himself into believing his heart didn’t beat faster whenever you walked into the room. He’d been stifling his feelings for you, until he himself didn’t even know about them, for fucking years, and he still managed to be that damned split second too late. 

Next to him, you were talking about your new boyfriend, though he couldn’t make himself listen to your words. Charles something-or-other had dropped in from nowhere; tearing Dean’s heart out of his chest and grinding it to dust just as he realised how he actually felt about you. Sure, maybe he wouldn’t have realised, if it wasn’t for your plans with a man that wasn’t him. But that didn’t make it hurt any less. 

You were his best friend, you were the reason he kept fighting, the straight and narrow path that kept him good, you were everything to Dean Winchester. Yet, to you he was only a hunting buddy and occasional confidante on dark nights when you couldn’t shake off the shadows of the latest hunt... Or, like it was that night, someone he could share good news with. Though to Dean it sounded more like you were reading his obituary.

“So, I’ll be out of the bunker… Hey, Dean?” 

His name on your lips was the wakeup call he needed to push himself out of the white noise in his own mind. Damn it, he’d never noticed how much he liked the way you said his name. Another example of how he’d always be just that second too late. 

All these missing seconds were adding up; stealing years of his life that could have been spent being more, better. Lost years that could have been spent saving people, hunting things… Loving you.

“What’s up?” 

His fist curled by his side as he watched the small furrow in your brow that followed the question. He wanted nothing more than to reach out and smooth it down. If nothing else, just to touch you, feel that you were still there. With him. Though he’d already lost you to another man. Instead he busied the hand that wanted to trace your features with the glass in front of him.

Chuckling wryly to himself, he drowned the slightly harsh laugh in his tumbler glass when he realised he couldn't honestly tell you what had been on his mind. He loved you. And, even before he realised that simple little fact, you were still his best friend; he always wanted to share every little thing with you. 

Yet, there was no way he could tell you, straight-faced, that he had been lost in thought. Overwhelmed by how much you meant to him. How much he loved you. How it’d struck him, out of the blue, like a lightning bolt. Only to keep striking every time you as much as looked at him, keep burning through his body like he was a goddamn lightning rod. 

Not when he’d loved you for an eternity, yet lost you in a second.

“It’s nothing,” Was all Dean managed to say, not wanting to be the one that brought back up the topic that was currently breaking his heart. Damn it, looking over at you, (Y/E/C) eyes filled to the brim with questions, it was so obvious. He had to be blind not to notice. 

He could feel it with every nerve in his body. How his lips looked for any excuse to say your name, just to taste it. By the way his heart soared with one smile from you, sending him tumbling into a dizzy vertigo that left him gasping for breath. It had always been you.

Dean finally understood why people called it falling in love. 

There was nothing gentle about the feelings raging through the hunter. He wasn’t gently and carefully floating into it or getting wrapped in cotton comfort. He wasn’t able to control it; to stop it, change the direction his heart had taken, or pull himself up and out.

No, Dean was falling. 

Head first. Fast and hard. Without a lifeline. 

Doomed to keep plummeting until he crashed and burned at the bottom of a bottle. Bruised and battered at the edge of his bed with only the cold shadows as his company. Bandaging a broken heart in cold, false indifference by turning to the old reliable art of denial. A hunter’s favourite weapon. Pushing the pieces of his broken heart into a box under lock and key. Burying ‘em 6 feet deep and under enough bodies and dark humour to make the world forget he ever even had a heart. 

Still. He couldn’t stop falling, not until the inevitable collision with reality shattered him into a million tiny pieces of heartbreak at your feet. Not when his mind was screaming the words at him. Not when his whole body was suddenly so painfully aware of you next to him. He figured it out just a second too late, but there was a lifetime lost in everything he felt for you. 

Everything.

That was the only word that mattered to Dean now. If he could, he would give you everything. He wanted you to have everything. You were everything. He wanted your everything. 

Your (Y/E/C) eyes, your laugh, your soft hair, your voice, your hands, your funny faces, your jokes, your stupidly adorable taste in movies. The way you said his name. Hell, the way you said anything really. The way your mind worked. The way you hummed out of tune to his songs in the car. Dean loved everything about you.

It was the only word that made any sense anymore. You were everything to him.

Taking another generous sip of the whiskey to wash away the bitter realisation that by losing you, he’d lost everything, Dean finally lifted his head to meet your eyes. Unable to keep himself away now that his heart had caught up to his stubborn mind. 

Somehow, even though you were right by his side, he was still missing you unless his eyes focused on you. 

Glancing at you from the corner of his eye, Dean marvelled at the fact that he ever managed to look straight at you. You were blindingly bright, breath-taking… Looking at you directly would leave him tongue-tied and breathless. You were… 

Hell, Dean had never been good at finding the right words. And either way you were too beautiful for a few measly letters strung together.

Of course some other man, a better man, had seen you and fallen for you. If it was you, then even heaven itself would fall to its knees in worship. Yet, where he was left in the endless fall, your new boyfriend was floating, together with you. Weightless and far above the darkness that surrounded one Dean Winchester. 

No. He needed to stop the slow-motion car crash that was his mind. Focus back on you. If nothing else, as your best friend. And to hear your voice, let it soothe him. Even if the topic was one he’d rather not touch.

“So, what time…” He couldn’t force the words out, as they burned like acid in his throat. Leaving the question unfinished and letting you deal with how you wanted to answer him. 

“Tomorrow? At around 6pm I think,” You said with a noncommittal shrug. Unaware how every one of your words were a sentencing and execution all at once. With Dean at the gallows; a soldier sentenced to death by heartbreak for being just that little bit too late.

He shouldn’t have asked. But if there was one thing Dean had learned about himself over the years it was that he was, apparently, a sucker for punishment. 

Finishing his whiskey in one go, he put the empty tumbler glass back on the table with a soft thud. Yet he was unable to remove his hand from it to reach for the bottle straight away. Afraid that if he did he’d either reach out to push your (Y/H/C) hair behind your ear or run away from it all unless he anchored himself to the table. No, Dean never ran away; not from the burdens he was forced to carry, not from the monsters he had to fight to protect the world, and definitely not from you. 

“Do you want another…” Dean started, unable to continue talking about your… About tomorrow. Yet still not wanting the night to end. Wishing for at least another few seconds to bask in something that was already lost to him. 

“I shouldn’t, it’s late… And I have a long day tomorrow,” You sighed, casting a joking gaze of longing towards the whiskey bottle before getting up with a stretch. A long day getting ready for him. Dean’s shaky hand reached out for the whiskey bottle you’d just rewarded with a look he’d kill for. Serving himself up a double; a necessary sacrifice from the amber liquid to his breaking heart.

Your eyes were lost to him as you stood by his side for a second, emptying the last drops of golden whiskey out of your own glass. A glass Dean envied more and more with every broken beat of his heart.

He wished you’d just reach out. Place a hand on his shoulder. A soft pat of informal friendship to say goodnight. Even if it was just for a second. Just so he could feel that there was a bond between you. That there was a single moment, a small gesture, that was only his. Just so he could feel your warmth, without it burning his fingertips with a touch he could never give you himself. Afraid that if he did, you’d know. That his feelings would transfer, from his fingers to your heart, and you’d never look at him the same way again.

“Ah alright,” Dean said, more to the glass than you as you slowly gathered up your things from the library table. A small smile on your lips, already shaping happy dreams around your plans for tomorrow. Though to Dean, it felt like the sun would never rise again. 

His stomach lurched with dirty, possessive feelings at the thought of you laughing and smiling with another man. Because he wanted to be the reason for your smile. Just like you were his reason for everything. 

‘Don’t go’, he thought as he drowned the acrid possessive thoughts in a sip of whiskey. Though he knew he could never say the words out loud. Loving Dean Winchester was a burden he could never force you to carry. Instead the words stuck in his throat, caught on the broken shards of his heart.

‘Stay with me’, he pleaded silently, more to the bottle than you. Biting the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood to keep the many words in. Damn it, it was so loud inside his head with all the things he wanted to confess to you; to his best friend. 

“Good night,” Dean whispered instead. 

Camouflaging his belated confession of love behind wishes of sweet dreams. Because if he let the words slip he would fall even further, and though heights never scared him, the thought of falling for you did.

---

Tags:

Dean Winchester Stories: @ria132love​​ @woodworthti666​​ @defenderrosetyler​​

All Stories: @deanwanddamons​

[laventadorn]

Dear laventadorn, you have ALL my sympathy for your vertigo! I had “benign paroxysmal positional vertigo” for a day many years ago and I hope I never get anything like it again! I felt like throwing up and falling over all the time. And I had to do weird exercises that involved throwing myself around on the bed to get rid of it. I hope you get to the root of yours soon and you start to feel better ASAP. Crossing my fingers for you (and best wishes to your mum). Love, Shepherds pie fan x

ahhh yes, that’s what my doctor thought i had! but i went to the PT to get myself jostled around like you did and she was like “uhhhh no this is central.” and apparently the only way to solve central vertigo is to habituate you to being dizzy all the time, which means making you dizzier until your brain adjusts?? so i have these terrible, terrible exercises where i just move my eyes around to look at these dots on a piece of paper and you wouldn’t think that was so awful but it issss.

i’m putting this behind a cut cuz it’s just me complaining about my vertigo lmao

everything makes me dizzy. i can barely look at gifs, especially if they’re going fast. i can’t read subtitles. reading at all is hard. my PT told me not to do so much of it, and at first i was like “noooo”because that’s my primary way of entertaining myself, but now reading just makes me feel like garbage so i’m like “yeah eff this.” and puzzles! i usually spend a ton of time working on complicated jigsaw puzzles but they make now me very dizzy because it’s what my PT called (iirc) “visual chaos.” so i’ve been doing a lot of lying in bed and listening to podcasts. this shit also makes me super tired (i mean i’m always tired but this is even more extreme; it’s like my entire body is so drained i have to pass out).

i can’t drive. someone else has to drive me everywhere (i guess it’s good there’s a pandemic and really nowhere to go??) i have to keep my eyes shut in the car these days cuz things whooshing past make me feel terrible. i was walking today on a sidewalk laid with bricks and i was like “EVIL” because all the lines were horrendous! wtf!

ok i’ll stop bitching but honestly it’s because i can’t look at this block of text anymore without my brain going xcvcbx;csaklagjbxc;b lmao i’ve been typing a lot of it with my eyes shut.

i’m glad yours went away and was only a day, though! what a relief :)

[squeeneyart]

Breathe in the Salt - Chapter Twelve

AO3

Beta reading by @thesnadger! Go read her things, like this time travel au!

Options are considered.

Tim has a rough time.

Shit. The lights were still on.

The small, illuminated window of the front door had stopped Martin in his tracks. Why had he come here? Certainly, talking to Jon about what had happened was something he should do, but that hadn’t been on his mind at all.

No, he knew the reason. He berated himself on Tim’s behalf.

Martin looked about, his eye catching the railing that blocked off the cliff. It was as good a spot as any for moping. He.made his way over to it and leaned his elbows on the flat top of the railing, careful to keep his eyes toward the dark horizon instead of the thrashing sea below.

Stupid. He had been lucky they were late workers. They’d unknowingly stopped him from throwing himself at some voice-stealing horror. What had he been thinking? That he would figure things out on his own? As if he could fix everything by running straight toward the danger and- and what?

Well, he certainly wouldn’t be doing anything that night. “Just be patient,” he muttered, rubbing his eyes. “It’s gonna be fine.”

“Y’know, you’re taking this whole process a lot harder than I’d expected.”

Martin jumped, gripping the railing with white knuckles. Sasha walked up and leaned against the railing to his left, tilting her head to look at his face. He stammered out, “When-”

“I’d come out to grab something from the car and stretch my legs a bit. You didn’t hear me walk over?” She raised an eyebrow at his tense state.

“I… Yeah. No, I mean I didn’t hear you. Sorry.” His voice came out more raw than he’d expected, and he cleared his throat. “Would’ve appreciated more of a warning, though?”

She smirked. “Noted. Though I wasn’t exactly trying to sneak up on you. Sounds to me like you were talking a bit too loudly to yourself.”

“Oh.” Well, he supposed that was a reason to stop talking to himself outside the lighthouse as well. What a week for learning embarrassing things about himself.

“So, Martin. Were you just planning to run upstairs for a quick chat?”

Martin tried to respond, but she didn’t give him an opening. “Clearly you didn’t come up here to talk to us.” She looked out across the sea, letting her smile falter. “I respect how much you want to figure this all out, but Tim definitely won’t be happy.”

Martin flinched. “No, you’ve got it wrong. I hadn’t even been thinking about it when I walked back up here, and once I saw you all were still working, I figured I’d leave you be.” He paused, then added, “And Tim really doesn’t need to know I was out here. He’d just get the wrong impression.”

With a curt laugh, Sasha readjusted herself onto both elbows. “I suppose he doesn’t. I wouldn’t let this happen again, though, if I were you.” A moment passed as she stretched her fingers. “What brought you up here, then?”

“I mean- that’s sort of personal.” Martin leaned away to get a better look at her, but her expression was unreadable in the dim light.

“Unless you have reason to believe the lighthouse compelled you, I have to assume there was some other reason you wandered up here, especially with that newly-soaked jacket sleeve?”

He laughed nervously. “Oh! Oh, I just tripped on the way, and with all the puddles-”

She cut him off. “Please don’t try that with me. It wasn’t a terrible deflection, but if you think I’m going to take a ‘personal reasons’ defense for you returning to your dangerous place of work past sundown when we might not be here-”

He held his hands out in front of him defensively. “It’s not like that! I just needed some air, and-.”

“And then you came here after a rather nasty fall.” When she saw Martin’s bewildered expression, she tapped a finger to her temple.

Lifting his hand, Martin lightly touched his own forehead and found a slightly raised lump just under his bangs that stung with the contact.

Sasha sighed. “I don’t want half-truths, which you seem to enjoy giving. Just tell me what happened.” She crossed her arms. “I want to understand what’s going on, same as you, but if you don’t trust us, we can’t trust you to make safe decisions.”

Martin scoffed. “Sure, yeah, like you all make ‘safe’ decisions.”

For a minute or so, they stood in silence against the rail and looked across the water. Turned away from the lighthouse that peered over their shoulders, Sasha’s features were obscured. She seemed to be waiting patiently. He took the offered time to think.

She wouldn’t need to know all the particulars of why he’d left home. Getting defensive when she had no reason to suspect anything other than the very real weirdness of the night was just digging him into an unnecessary hole.

“I wanted to get some time out of the house for myself.” Yes, that should be enough for that bit. “When I got up top, I looked at the lighthouse without thinking and I blacked out. Maybe part of me thought I could figure things out by coming here, instead of sitting around doing nothing.”

He took in a shaky breath. “But I’m not trying anything tonight, obviously. I wasn’t thinking straight, that’s all.”

With this, some tension left her face. “I don’t doubt it considering the bump on your head, though coming here without thinking is concerning in and of itself. Did anything about tonight’s blackout seem different from what you’ve experienced recently?”

He nodded. “The vertigo, it usually just... happens. I look at the lighthouse, or down from its weird window, or sometimes just down the hill, and it hits like a brick. Tonight, though…” he swallowed, but the dryness made it an effort. “I saw something. A huge, black pit right behind me, like it was always there.”

There was a wobble to his voice, but if Sasha noticed, she didn’t react. “And when did the vertigo hit?”

“I’m not sure? It happened so fast, it was like the sky was pushing me into it. I think... it was when I finally looked down into the pit that the feeling came.” Martin twiddled his thumbs. “Then I came to, and the pit was gone.”

“Hm.” Sasha tapped on the railing and looked at him. “Has anything changed for you between this incident and the ones earlier this week?”

“No. I don’t think so.” The lie felt bad going down, but there was no helping it. “I was stressed about everything going on, I suppose. Thinking about upstairs.”

She seemed to accept this with a nod. “That could do it. Stress works well with a lot of phenomena. If you think of anything else, let us know. Tim has been trying to keep track of his experiences, but I think it’s hard for him to keep his thoughts straight about it.” Her brows crinkled with concern.

Martin frowned. “There was a moment on the stairs where he wasn’t doing well.”

She sighed. “Yeah, it’s been a rough week for him. Luckily, he’s not one to hide this sort of thing when he doesn’t have to.” That would’ve felt pointed if she didn’t seem so genuinely worried. “Not that he never does. Everyone has personal business. But he knows that right now it’s best to be up front about any issues, because it means we can try to solve the problem.’

She purposefully locked eyes with him. “You get that, right? We all want this to be settled so everyone can be okay, and that means honesty.”

She could tell he was hiding something. Or she was just throwing whatever at the wall just in case he was lying. Or she was just concerned about Tim and himself?

Shit, he wasn’t in a place to figure out what anyone was thinking. “I know. It’s important to have all of the facts. That’s why we’re waiting for the phone call, right?”

“Yep.” Sasha tucked some loose hair behind her ear. “Tim said he’d talked to you upstairs, about what the thing probably is.”

Martin huffed in frustration. “I know, but I’d still rather do something. He- they begged me to help. I know it was my own voice, but-”

Her hand landed gently on his shoulder. “But it felt like a person?”

Another hard swallow. “Yeah.”

Sasha tapped on the railing again, then looked back at her car. “I should go get the thing I came out here for. You should come inside, too, to tell the others what happened. Maybe they’ll have some insights.” She offered him a half smile, and as she turned more toward the light, Martin could see the bags under her eyes. “Honestly, it’ll be a welcome excuse for all of us to stop going over historical documents and our own bad handwriting.”

“Not super successful, then?”

She smiled with more than a hint of pain. “More like success is hard to track in these circumstances.”

Once Sasha had grabbed a file folder from her car, they walked back into the lighthouse. Martin kept his eyes down, unwilling to look at Tim or Jon for very different reasons.

“Look who showed up with some new info regarding magical nausea.” Sasha took a seat at the table next to Tim.

“Great!” Tim said, closing a binder with a decisive snap that made Martin’s head shoot up in surprise. “Love to learn more about terrifying phenomena that affect me in unpleasant ways-Oh, wow. That’s a nasty one you’ve got.”

Martin set his slightly damp jacket on the back of his chair and sat next to Jon without making eye contact. There was no chance Jon wasn’t connecting some dots about his reappearance, and even if Tim and Sasha weren’t present, Martin had no desire to discuss anything related to selkies for a long, long while.

--

“That’s certainly… something,” Jon said, once Martin had completed a more thorough retelling of his fall. “Does that sound anything like what you’ve experienced, Tim?”

Tim seemed to contemplate this. “I haven’t had it bad enough to pass out, and a big hole in the ground doesn’t ring a bell. It doesn’t feel wrong, though.”

“How so?” Sasha asked. She had her elbow on the table and leaned her head against a closed fist.

“I mean, when I’m walking up those stairs, it’s hard not to feel like you’re about to fall into something. That’s where vertigo usually happens, right? On the edge of a big drop, like the one outside.”

Jon looked up at Tim, then back down at his pad. “Yes, though it can also be caused by an issue of the inner ear, a cause we shouldn’t throw out just yet.”

Tim snorted. “My ears are fine, thank you very much.”

This earned him a pull on the ear lobe from Sasha. After he grunted with some dramatics, she said, “Yep, seems fine to me. I wonder, Martin, if the change was brought on by your time with Simon Fairchild. He also sort of ‘pushed’ you backwards, right?”

“Huh. Yeah, actually. It was a lot like that.” Of course it was. How had he not thought of that? “Sorry. I guess it’s hard to think about either of those experiences too much.”

Jon tapped his pen on the table, seeming to look for the right words. “That doesn’t explain why it didn’t happen until tonight, when you’d been on the stairs hours earlier. Considering Tim’s response, I would’ve expected yours to be worse as well.”

Martin made the mistake of looking up to see Jon’s concerned face. Yes, Jon had an idea of what had changed between then and now and was doing a terrible job at hiding it from the others. “Maybe it was frustration, then? When I went home, it was after hours of nothing happening. Maybe that made me look up longer than normal, and everything with me is fine.” Please, he begged, please stop looking as if you know something.

Before Jon could respond, Sasha said, “We could test it.”

Grateful as he was for the distraction, Martin stared at Sasha in confusion. “...How?”

“We go up the stairs and supervise. If things are the same as they were before tonight, then we have new knowledge about how this place works. If the pit reappears, we can dig further into why this seems to be your current condition.”

Tim spoke up with an unexpected edge to his words. “And when you say ‘go up the stairs’, you mean do that and come right back down, right?”

Sasha turned to him. “We could, but-”

Tim slumped in his chair, massaging his temples. “No. No, we talked about this, and it’s a bad idea.”

“It’s also a bad idea to wait until time is up.” She lowered her voice, reaching a hand out toward Tim’s shoulder. “Look, we’ll all be there, and we won’t spend too long talking to it. I promise.”

Tim swatted her hand away. “You agreed to wait for the phone call! It hasn’t even been 24 hours.”

“What if it doesn’t come? What if she never calls back, and we waste the rest of our time and end up returning to the Institute with nothing?”

With some irritation, Jon said, “There’s a change Elias will extend the project-”

“Oh, I don’t believe that for a second.” Sasha waved her hand dismissively. “If anything, his weird radio silence this whole week makes me think he has no intention to do so. Has he responded seriously to any of your update emails?”

Jon opened his mouth to speak, only to come up with nothing.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Nothing but ‘excellent’ and ‘thank you for the report’, if you receive a response at all. If we can’t find anything that doesn’t make our digging into the Lukases painfully obvious, we’re going to get pulled from this place, leaving us with no answers or solutions. I don’t think Martin would be very happy with that outcome. I definitely wouldn’t.”

Martin kept his mouth shut, not daring to enter the argument. His eyes flitted between the three researchers, a horrible emptiness filling his chest. So that was it. Unless Naomi gave them something to work with, or they figured out whatever was going on in the next day, that could be it. They would be gone, and he’d be on his own.

Tim glanced at Martin, his face layered with exhaustion and a sort of dread. “...Guys.”

Jon’s eyes were still trained on Sasha with uncertainty. “I don’t think we can make a call-”

“I think we can! We can ask it a few questions, alternate who asks something so it doesn’t get too much of anyone, then stop once we’ve got something we can use-”

Tim’s gaze lost focus, and he shot out of his chair. Before the other two could respond, he stumbled across the room and into the toilet, slamming the door behind him.

“Shit,” Sasha said under her breath, walking after him. She pressed an ear to the door, then grimaced. “Tim, are you okay?”

Jon sent him a brief, nervous look. “Just… give us a moment.” Jon pushed himself out of his chair and joined Sasha.

“Er.” Martin ran his thumb over his knuckles, eyeing the exit with increasing desperation. If Jon hadn’t said anything he would’ve quietly excused himself, but as things were, Martin remained glued to his chair.

The walls betrayed any attempt at whispering. “Tim.” Sasha knocked lightly on the door. “It’s okay. We won’t do anything tonight, I swear.”

She winced at something Martin couldn’t hear. “Oh, that doesn’t sound good,” she muttered, turning toward Martin. “Can you get some water?”

--

After about ten minutes, Tim stumbled out of the toilet, finished glass in hand. After looking at his chair, he elected to sit on the floor with his back against the wall.

He sighed, placing a hand over his eyes. “Don’t get how you’ve worked here for so long.”

Martin scratched his face. “It’s-”

“‘Good pay’, I know.” Tim dropped his hand and played with the empty glass, narrowing his eyes at Sasha and Jon. “God, stop hovering and get down here. Stop making me look up.” They did as they were told, Sasha with legs pulled to her chest and Jon with an elbow resting against his one upright knee.

Tim waved a lazy arm up at Martin, who had returned to the table. “You too. Everyone on the floor.”

“Oh. I, um, I really should get going, actually? It is a bit late, and-”

Tim’s glare was feeble at best. Still, Martin got the message and sat on the floor as well, crossing his legs in front of him with all the grace he could muster, which wasn’t much at this point.

Satisfied, Tim dragged a hand down his cheeks, pulling at the skin under his eyes. “Well, then. Martin. How are you feeling right now?”

Martin leaned back. “Excuse me?”

Tim rolled his eyes. “You came here after hallucinating a giant pit and hitting your head. How are you feeling?”

The sincerity of the question hit Martin like the pavement. “I’m… I’m fine? The bump only stings when I touch it, so...”

“Not quite what I meant. It’s been a weird week. I’m wondering how you’re doing, considering all this.” He gestured the glass toward the general surroundings.

“I-” Martin looked to the others, but all he got were similar questioning looks. At least they weren’t holding up pens and notebooks, and they didn’t have a look of scientific interest. They just... wanted to know how he was doing. “Okay, yeah, it has been a weird week. Whatever is going on, the dizziness is way worse than it used to be, and I don’t know if it’s from us snooping around, or unusual amounts of stress, or something else entirely, but it’s not great.”

To his right, Jon grimaced and pulled his upright leg closer to himself. “I apologize. We’ve been relying on you for much of our investigation, but I hadn’t checked to see if you were all right with it all.”

Martin shook his head. “I wanted to help. It was my own decision to be involved like I have been. It’s my job to keep track of how I’m doing.”

Sasha exhaled through her nose. “True, but we could’ve been more upfront about the methods and risks.” Sasha twisted a lock of hair around her finger. “You’ve been helpful to us, and we’re thankful, but that doesn’t excuse ignoring the effects our work could be having on you. It’s a lot to deal with if you’re not prepared.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” Martin chuckled. “This is your job, though. How the hell do you deal with it?”

Tim snorted. “Apparently I haven’t been. This past week has knocked me right on my arse.”

Jon frowned. “It’s not always like this. For the most part, we just stay at the Institute, taking new statements and praying we can find a rational place to store them in the ancient filing system. Which we’re still dealing with despite working on it for two years now.”

“God, please no, not the filing system again,” Tim groaned, unable to hide a smirk.

Jon soldiered on, bitterness dripping from his voice. “It’s an absolute mess. Statements are dated, but nothing is organized by date! We’ve only just started to have a usable database, and by the time we enter everything into it, we’ll be haunting the place ourselves.”

“So, to answer your question, we deal with it by doing paperwork and complaining,” Sasha said with a fake brightness. Her shoulders slumped. “I know it’s been rough, but this is the part of the job I live for.”

“Normally I’d agree, if I wasn’t being terrorized by literal hostile architecture.” Tim landed hard on his t’s, jaw clenched. Then, he relaxed and shrugged at Martin. “Otherwise, yeah, field work is great. Get to see new places, and most of the time it’s just a nice trip out of the city.”

Jon rolled his eyes. “I do wish we had a better vetting process for these things. I understand the budget currently allows for field trips, but I’d rather not be sent out for pranks and tricks of the light. And, well-”

“It could stop you from being an arse every time Elias sends us off?” This earned Tim an annoyed scowl.

Jon stammered out, “That is not fair-”

“And that’s enough of that, I think.” Sasha stretched out her legs. “We’ve all learned a lesson and made friends.”

“If Martin hasn’t decided to delete my number the moment this is taken care of,” Tim said with a wide grin. “Wouldn’t blame you, mind.”

Martin raised his eyebrows, heat rushing to his ears. “Hey, I’m not-”

Tim waggled a finger. “Don’t say anything you’ll regret. I’m a very avid texter.”

“I’m- it’s not-” Martin took a quick breath to gather himself. “It’s been nice, actually, having you all here. Even if it’s ended in me banging my head against a curb.”

Jon cleared his throat. “Though that is a… nice sentiment? We do still have tomorrow. And though Sasha thinks it to be unlikely, I’m still expecting an extension, especially after your incident earlier.” He nodded as if reassuring himself. “Yes, I think it will be fine.”

“Just don’t go falling over again,” Tim said, pointing a firm finger in Martin’s direction. “I for one plan on keeping my eyes shut the whole walk to the hotel, forcing Jon and Sasha to lead me away from potential danger.”

Ignoring a dirty look from Jon, Tim’s face softened. “Just take it slow on the way home. Maybe take one of us with you in case the hill ends up being a lot. I’d go myself, but it might end with both of us tumbling into a bear.”

Martin laughed. “I don’t think we have- Anyway, I don’t think that’s necessary.”

“You did say something about the hill giving you trouble,” Sasha said. “Jon knows where you live, right? He can make sure you get back fine, and I’ll stop Tim from tripping into a bin.”

“Yes, that’s good thinking,” Jon said, using the table to pull himself to his feet.

Oh no. “Um-”

“It was our fault for not checking in with you.” Jon offered a hand to Martin. “The least we can do is make sure nothing else happens tonight.”

The walk was terribly long. He was already feeling much better. Jon would have to walk all the way back afterwards. Really, he’d be-

“All right…” Martin grabbed Jon’s hand, accepting the help. “Only if you’re okay with it.”

[lost-in-time-marie]

Into the Shadows: Chapter Five

The rubber soles of my red converses patted softly against the linoleum hall of the school. I wandered absently through the maze-like, white halls of the red, brick building. I was supposed to go to the office to drop off some papers for a teacher, one of many chores from Teacher Assisting. Instead I was enjoying my favorite pastime. I loved the cold; October had a nice chill to it. In the older halls of the building with poor insulation, I could gaze out the large windows to watch the red and orange leaves fall softly to the awaiting ground while enjoying the chill of October as it seeped through the walls of the school. I was enjoying such a moment on Tuesday when I heard the softest tinkling sound. I ignored it at first, wondering if perhaps I imagined the sound. It persisted and I took notice of a melody. Music. Somebody was playing music. Unable to resist, I followed the noise.

I pushed open a pale, wooden door that led to the balcony of the auditorium. On the stage below, a man sat at a beautiful, black grand piano, I squinted in an attempt to get a better look, but it was simply too far. The most beautiful melody poured over me, hanging in the air. It seemed to wrap around me, embracing me, cooing at me to stay for a while. Gathering all my effort, I left the balcony, quickly sprinting down the stairs at the end of the hall. I wanted to be surrounded by the music again. Quietly, I pushed open the lower auditorium door and walked swiftly passed rows and rows of uncomfortable stadium seats to the bottom of the stage. I gazed up at the boy as he hunched over the piano, hands flying gracefully over the keys. His curly dark hair hung in his face, unable to hide his evident happiness and peace. A pang of envy shot through me, I wished I could play the piano like that. It took me a moment to recognize the song; it was one of my favorites, Maybe by Yiruma. I laid my head on my pale, folded arms and closed my eyes. The music wrapped comfortingly around me, I lost myself in the melody and beauty of swift twinkling notes.

“Kristin?” A familiar voice questioned. I hadn’t noticed the music stopped, I quickly snapped open my eyes and instantly recognized James peering down at me from the piano bench. His dark eyes stared down at me in confusion; I thought I detected the faintest blush painting his cheeks.

“Sorry,” I apologized, blood rushing to my cheeks, “I didn’t mean to intrude, I heard you playing from the hallway upstairs and that’s my favorite song.” The red of his cheeks deepened and he stared down at the keys. It was refreshing to see his easy-going, charming mask come off.

“It’s just a hobby of mine, helps me think. I’m skipping class right now actually,” He said with a laugh, studying the piano keys.

I smiled, “As much as I frown upon skipping, I’ll let you pass this time because that was absolutely the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard, annnnnd I’m skipping too,” I joked with a laugh. James smiled and patted the space next to him on the piano bench. I hoisted myself on stage and sat beside him. We were so close I could smell the sweetness of his skin and when he inhaled our shoulders brushed.

“Where did you learn to play like that?” I asked, breaking the silence, trying to focus on anything other than how good he smelled right then.

James brushed his fingers gingerly over the keys, almost longingly, before turning to look at me, “It’s just something my father taught me. I’ve loved to play since I was a kid, it clears my head, lets me escape from the world for a while,” He shrugged, faking nonchalance. It did not escape my notice that, for the first time, he answered my question honestly.

“I can see that it’s important to you, I think it’s great, everyone needs to escape now and again. I like to read and watch movies to escape. Everyone has their own things,” I smiled encouragingly, nudging his shoulder lightly with mine. His dark eyes softened into that liquid brown that melted my bones and he gave a small, sad smile.

“Is everything okay, James? You’ve seemed so down and distracted after your first couple of weeks at school here. I hate to see you this way,” I said, worried. I placed my hand over his on the piano and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

“Thank you for worrying about me. Things have just been difficult with my dad. I don’t really want to talk about it,” James explained, his deep brown eyes clouded with sadness.

“Okay, I understand,” I gave a small, comforting smile, “Just know that I’m always here,” I offered.

“Thank you,” James smiled, this time it reached his eyes. He clasped my hand tightly in his and began to play a soft, slow melody with the other. My heart beat erratically and my hand felt strangely warm where he held it. I tired to keep my thoughts in order. James was finally opening up; I couldn’t waste this precious opportunity with foolish girlishness.

“Do you live with your dad?” I asked, staring at his peaceful face as his fingers danced over the keys.

“Yes, my mom died when I was very young, it’s just been the two of us for as long as I can remember,” James replied, still staring at the piano, never faltering in his tune, even as he talked. I let the subject go then, somehow it seemed wrong to take advantage of his sudden vulnerability to feed my own curiosity. I enjoyed his beautiful music, happy to have learned a little something about his mysterious life, always kept so secret.

 “So do you want to hang out after school today?” Natasha asked, plopping her backpack onto her desk next to me. The rest of the morning had passed quickly after my encounter with James, probably something to do with our interaction running on repeat in my head, hopelessly distracting me for the rest of the day. I had nearly forgotten my own impending doom. I sighed and bit my lip.

“I, uh, can’t…” I trailed off, “I have a tutoring session with Ryder Grim at the library.” I whispered in a rush.

“You have a tutor?” Natasha choked in surprise. The people at nearby desks turned their heads and gave us weird looks.

“Lower your voice!” I huffed, smacking her arm in cadence with my syllables. “It’s not exactly ‘tutoring’, we have to study together for the AP exam, Mrs. Gold is making us,” I sighed rolling my eyes. A sour taste filled my mouth just uttering the unfortunate circumstances that would bring Ryder and I together this afternoon.

“Oh man,” Natasha laughed, “That really sucks, talk about irony.”

“Yes, well, I’m glad one of us is amused,” I glared at her.

“Seriously though, you’ve been hanging out with the kid a lot between tutoring and partnering up with him for this project in Psychology, I think you liiiiike him” Natasha teased in a sing-song voice, nudging my shoulder.

“I could literally kill you right now for even thinking that!” I seethed, “And I did not partner up with him! It was an accident, I explained this last night on the phone. Luckily, James got to class late and had to join our group, so I won’t be stuck with Ryder alone any longer than purely necessary.” I muttered, mentally thanking whoever was responsible for that. Natasha laughed and I pouted at my own rotten luck. Before long, Sinclair swept into the class right after the late bell, as usual. Class passed quickly, mostly Sinclair discussed the project further and answered questions. Sooner than I would have liked, sooner than seemed fair to me, the bell rang, and we were released. I was suddenly envious of my peers that had their freedom this afternoon. I took upon the air of a woman marching to her own funeral, begrudgingly gathering my things, placing them in my backpack so slowly a turtle could outpace me. Ryder briskly walked to my desk and waited impatiently for me.

“Are you ready?” He asked severely while I shoved my binder into my backpack.

“Do I look ready?” I retorted, refusing to look at him, my dark mood making me ruder towards him than I usually allowed. I quickly zipped my backpack as he reached for the strap.

“What are you doing?” I asked, again harsher than I intended, pulling the backpack away from him.

“I was going to carry your things,” He answered blankly, raising a questioning brow at my sudden severity.

“Yeah, I think I can handle it,” I mumbled and slung the pack over my shoulder. I swore the tiniest smile graced his lips from the corner of my eye, but it was gone so fast I must have imagined it. Our altercation at the elementary school had done nothing to change our relationship; his mood swings left me so confused I was experiencing vertigo.

Natasha, Ryder, and I walked together to the parking lot. We were an unusual trio to be sure and our ensemble gathered more than a few stares as we made our way across campus. Natasha would drop me off at the library for the tutoring session while Ryder rode behind us. The plan was for him to tutor me for an hour and a half, then James would join us, and we’d work on our Psychology project for another hour and a half. Finally, I would be free to take the subway home and die of exhaustion.

We walked silently to the student parking lot. I realized I hated walking through school with Ryder because the stares always followed, if there was one thing I disliked more than Ryder himself, it was being the center of attention. Before long, Ryder veered off to his own car, while Natasha and I piled into her Prius. We circled around the lot and finally found him. When we did, I stared open mouthed, not even trying to conceal my shock, as he climbed, always graceful, onto a hot red motorcycle.

“He drives a motorcycle, too!” I exclaimed too loudly to Natasha. Natasha nearly doubled over laughing. “He’s too perfect, god damn it! There has to be some kind of limit to this thing. One guy cannot be inhumanly beautiful, graceful, smart, and ride a sexy as hell motorcycle. I mean, it’s just not fair!” I fumed. Natasha was practically crying from laughing now. I crossed my arms and sulked in the passenger seat while Natasha composed herself and drove to the library, Ryder following directly behind. I pouted with my arms crossed in the passenger seat, boring holes in him through the side view mirror the whole way there. Ryder could get me agitated like no one else, a fact that only made me despise him that much more. The more time I spent with Ryder, I remained confused as to how he could get me so worked up, compared to the usual indifference I felt to just about every other male at our school. Perhaps it was, as I described to Natasha, his inhuman perfection, or his constantly changing mood that was impossible to keep up with and the refined “I’m better than everyone else” air he kept about himself. Regardless of the reason, I found myself very much dreading this evening and every Tuesday and Thursday evening for the next weeks to come.

After a few minutes, we pulled up to a modest brick building with sliding glass doors and a sign that read “Public Library” in silver block letters. I slowly, grudgingly, gathered my things, wishing I wouldn’t have to get out of the car.

“Have fun, play nice!” Natasha called with a laugh before speeding away. I grimaced at her retreating car before trudging into the library. The doors slid open in welcome and I automatically breathed in the familiar, comforting smell of books. Rows upon rows of them stood before me, divided straight down the middle by a sea of tan tables and chairs, in the very back a blue counter sat for check out, an older man worked studiously behind it. The peace and quiet was a welcome reprieve from the mess of school, I paused for a moment longer to enjoy it. It had been a long time since I sought the solace of this building. I couldn’t quite drift in the allure of the books around me, knowing the chore I had before me. I saw Ryder pulling out books and papers at a table and slowly walked toward him. I imagined killers took a faster approach to the firing squad. The chair scraped too loudly against the wood floors as I took a seat beside him.

It was a little awkward at first, as we began studying. Neither of us said very much as we busted open AP study books and textbooks and diagrams. I had to give him credit, he was a good. He never got annoyed or exasperated, just easily answered my questions and explained core concepts without any emotion. After an hour I felt much better about the subject than I ever had. I leaned back in my chair and sighed.

“Okay, my brain hurts, I need to take a break before I implode,” I insisted, pushing the books and papers away from me. A small smiled teased at the corner of his lips, but it never reached his eyes.

“Oh, come on!” I exclaimed. Too loudly, because the man at the counter threw me a dark scowl and shushed me, as if my outburst was sure to ruin the integrity of his carefully curated atmosphere. I resisted the urge to stick my tongue out at him like a child.

Ryder looked marginally surprised by my outburst. “What?” he asked, the slightest hint of shock coloring his tone.

“You never show any emotion. You sit in class all the time, completely unmoving, like a stone statue,” I explained, exasperated, demanding an answer. I attempted a poor replication of his unafflicted expression for his benefit.

His pale pink lips quirked up into a small smile. “Is that why you called me a stone statue a couple of days ago? You disapprove of my lack of expression?” He asked, clearly bemused at the thought.

“Yes,” I answered softly, heat steadily crawling up to my cheeks without my permission, “I guess I just sort of made that nickname for you in my head, but come on, it’s totally deserved. You’re emotionless and rude,” I explained bluntly, only slightly embarrassed by revealing my true thoughts. I used my hair as a thin veil, unwilling to expose my blush.

He grinned now. “Ahh, but you do think of me, don’t you?” He teased with a breathy almost laugh.

I rolled my eyes, “You wish.” I turned my gaze down toward the table, attempting to hide the grin that spread across my face without any prodding from my brain to have told it to do such a thing, in response to Ryder no less. I shifted my hair to sweep across one side of my neck, further obscuring my face from his view, clearly I couldn’t be trusted around him to keep my composure.

We didn’t say much else after that and it wasn’t very long until James arrived. We started on our psychology project without any interruption. Ryder seemed tense working closely with James, and though I tried to draw the fun, carefree side of James out, he remained as stiff and humorless as Ryder. I wondered what could possibly have transpired between the two of them to force such a reaction. I was glad when we finished our project fifteen minutes early; the tension was palpable in the air. Ryder left with a curt goodbye, while James stayed behind to walk me down the block to the subway station.

“Have you heard the news lately?” James inquired, as we paced quickly down the street.

“No, why?” I asked intrigued by the turn our conversation had taken.

“Supposedly, a string of break-ins has occurred in the city at medical labs,” He informed, playful suspicion coating his words.

I laughed, “So? Crime is hardly unusual in New York. It’s probably a couple of lowlifes looking to score,” I shrugged.

He laughed too and changed the subject. “So are you excited for the haunted house our school is putting on for Halloween?” He asked, waggling his brows.

“Ugh, no. I don’t really do scary or adrenaline,” I replied, smiling sheepishly.

“You know Natasha is going to force you to go,” He chuckled, pausing before the entrance to the subway.

“Oh, I know,” I laughed, “But that doesn’t mean I’m excited or going to enjoy it,” I finished before turning and walking to the subway. James caught my elbow to stop me.

"Hey, Kristin?" James asked, showing a rare moment of hesitancy.

"What's up?" I replied, instantly concerned by the change in his demeanor.

"Will you go out with me sometime? Just me and you? I know this sounds a little strange and forward because we're only friends and all, but I have this feeling like I want you to know me, really know me," He explained sheepishly, averting his eyes. I swore there was the slightest pink in his cheeks.

"James, I would love to. I don't think it's weird or forward at all. I would love to get to know you better," I beamed. I had been so curious about James since he arrived, if he finally wanted to give me the opportunity to pick his brain that sounded just fine to me.

[darksunrising]

Sola Gratia (16/?)

Masterlist

Rating / Warnings : Graphic depictions of violence (death, gore, body horror). Reader discretion is advised.

Fandom : Bram Stoker’s Dracula, BBC’s Dracula, various Dracula and vampire lore.

Part 16/? (3111 words)

Author’s notes : Leah’s pov. 

~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

Once I got used to the way Carmilla drove her truck like a bumper car, and made my peace with my imminent death, I realized she actually never was anything close to hitting anything. She just had that crazy energy that called for concern, somehow. When I was able to shrug it off, though, I was actually pretty fun. She kept a hand on the wheel, not seeming to pay much attention to the road at all, and asked me a lot of questions.

You'd think that would be the other way around, but she somehow seemed interested In knowing things about me. She wondered about my hobbies, my research subject, my favorite sound, or if I'd rather have licorice for teeth, or fruit-by-the-foot for arms. We ended up disagreeing on that matter, but to be fair, I figured licorice wasn't that bad for someone who feeds exclusively on blood.

She parked in my street, and I guided her toward a tall, 15-something stories high building I called home. It was old, but not enough as to be aesthetically pleasing like Eris', or even have an old-fashioned charm. Nah, mine was from some forgotten architect's mind from the seventies, who modeled the whole block out of the most boring version of brutalism possible. Like, I had nothing against brutalism per se, Le Corbusier buildings usually slap, but this one... Wasn't it. When I first started to live there, I did the math of how many people could live in such a huge place, and the quick realization that it was well over a three-digit number gave me vertigo for days. As of now, it seemed perfectly normal, and I knew most of the people living there on a first-name basis. Carmilla was looking over the stark lines of concrete, dividing the façade in hive-like rectangles.

“Well, that's... Uninspired”, she commented, which made me laugh.

“You're nowhere near ready for the inside, then”, I replied, fumbling for my keys.

I buzzed us in, the strong, metallic noise of the door making her cringe. I myself took some time to get used to it. The floor was covered in some cheap imitation of marble, and the walls by some faded, yellowed wallpaper no one had bothered changing or cleaning in years. The roof, as was the trend back when it was built, was a dirty white rough plaster, that too never cleaned, as parging was obviously nearly impossible to wash. I called for the lift, giggling at Carmilla's cringe. As the red LEDs showed the lift's slow descent toward the ground floor, I knocked on the wooden frame a few times.

“What's that for ?”, the vampire asked, curious.

“Oh, it's superstition, so that the lift doesn't break down”, I replied, the absurdity of the ritual hitting me as I put it into words.

“That doesn't make any sense.”

“Never said it did !”

As the small screen indicated it reached our floor, with a small, rusty bell sound, I opened the door. It was the kind of elevator that had no doors of its own, but every floor had a swing door, opening onto the shaft. That always seemed like an incredibly hazardous system, especially considering the number of children I spotted running down the corridors every damn day. And no, there was obviously no security close to the doors, meaning anyone could just throw themselves down the elevator shaft at any given time. Miraculously, there had been no incidents since I moved there, except the one instance of a 60-something year-old man breaking his hip. The lift didn't go all the way to match the level, because of God knows what kind of mechanical failure, and he missed the step. Thankfully, the walls are kind of thin here, and his scream quickly alerted a neighbor, who called an ambulance immediately.

Still, there were always stories, the usual type you find in any buildings, really. One lady, scorned by her lover, supposedly threw herself down in despair, her cries still haunting the halls in moonless nights. On the thirteenth floor, the elevator would seem there, but as you'd open the door, you would only see the pitch black darkness of the shaft, and be pushed in. As I myself lived on that particular floor, I never had any instance of dying by supernatural forces in six years of residence. Not yet, at least.

While the lift went up, the familiar slight squeaking noise was the only disturbance to the silence. I propped myself against the wall opposite the door, and she had her elbow pressed against the same wall, nonchalantly leaning over me. I tried looking as casual as possible, but I could somehow feel like she delighted in the effect she had on me. I wondered if it was perfume, but she smelled strange. Not bad, mind you, but something unusual. I could have described it saying it was spicy, yet sweet, like cinnamon and honey in a lemon black tea, but it felt more like a landscape. The more I focused on that perfume, the more everything seemed to fade away, placing images in my mind. Dark, orange dunes, undulating under a deep blue sky, ripples of golden grains softly running across their quiet surface. Tall ridges of red stone, carved by the winds and ancient, long gone rives into maze-like patterns, so narrow the bright moon couldn't fit entirely in the gorges.

The elevator bell suddenly brought me back to reality, and though still a bit shaken, I didn't mention anything. I led her into the long corridor, bathed in an orange, flickering haze by the wall lights. I opened my door with the usual struggle, and as usual, proved the victor, pushing it in. Whoever put it on its hinges obviously did a marvelous job, as it was a bit tilted, and drew a circular black mark where it dragged every time I opened it. Seeing as she didn't get in, I quickly invited her in, closing the door behind her with a kick.

I regretted not putting a bit more order into the flat, even if I had no way of knowing I'd get a visitor. I mean, Eris did come over regularly, but we knew each other long enough that she didn't pay any mind to the mess, knowing where to step to not squeeze out a cable or something like that. It wasn't dirty, I just figured furniture was too expensive and not useful enough as to be something I'd waste money on. Most of my books were stacked in piles along the wall, which was arguably better than standing up anyways, concerning the warping of pages. My couch, tables, chairs were also the results of many DIY weekend with Eris, using pallets we found scavenging around big supermarkets, and a lot of time sanding, varnishing, and painting. Same for the cushions and the like, that we made ourselves too, buying a whole roll of cheap upholstery white fabric, and a metric ton of stuffing. In all, I think we did 90% of the whole house furnishing ourselves. It gave the place a singular look, very colorful, and a bit alien, with all the cables snaking across the walls, and the plants hanging all over from the ceiling or about anywhere. We also made up some overly complicated automatic watering system, that was more or less efficient, and only used whenever I felt like cleaning up the mess.

The point was, it was a weird-ass apartment, and I wondered if Carmilla would like it. She looked around, and I chose not to read into her expression. She went up to a suspended spider-plant, in a pot hoisted up by a hemp net.

“Did you make this yourself ?”, she asked.

“Yeah, the net and the pot, actually”, I replied, anxiously waiting for her appreciation.

She smiled, and gave it a little push, leaving the plant to softly swing around.

“I love it.”

I sighed with relief, which made her laugh. A bit embarrassed, I went to look for my tech stuff, and set it on the bar, booting up the computer. As it took its time, I went over the coffee machine, asking Carmilla if she'd like a cup. She only raised an eyebrow. Ah, fuck me. She said a polite “No, thank you”, yet sounded like she was lightly making fun of me.

The sound of the whirring machine covered the one, a bit more faint, of my long, high-pitched squeal of embarrassment. I always felt like the mere feeling of the hot cup into my hands was enough to start up a working mood. I set the VPN running, for a start.

“So, what exactly should I be looking for ?”, I asked Carmilla.

“I think the records of the latest murders would be a good start, if you can access those”, she proposed, moving over behind me, eyes on the screen.

“If I can access those”, I scoffed, and started typing away.

I did get caught fast last time, but I thought my only obstacle was breaking in, not being anonymous. That time, I wouldn't make that mistake. Their servers were very well protected, but then again, nothing is truly unbreakable. Those especially powerful often get cocky, and being cocky often allows for mistakes. Mistakes I did a great job exploiting, if I do say so myself. Breaking into the archive of MINA's wasn't that hard. I, of course, focused much of my energy being certain I could not be identified. Being inside such a huge building, with tons of different IPs and internet traffic, hiding was not that hard. I came to be pretty disappointed, however, when I could find no trace of any of the documents. Some uninteresting incidents, very easily disputed in terms of paranormal activity, a lot of recordings, all labeled with an identification number, all starting with the letters MAG, which puzzled me somewhat. I didn't think it over much, and reviewed the rest of the files. None matched those that Carmilla looked for. I groaned in frustration.

“I don't think they digitized those files yet, for some reason”, I told her.

“Probably because the case isn't closed yet”, she observed, and took a pause, thinking. “Which means there probably will be more to come...”

“What do you mean ?”

“Could you access the local police radios ?”, she asked, her confidence back on.

Nothing easier. Tapping onto those was fast, and if you knew where to look, pretty efficient. The only problems were the important traffic, which made it complicated to find only the information that actually interested you. Trying to follow murders, while having no idea where to look or when to expect it was a bit complicated.

I set up another post for my accomplice, and we got to listening, me going through the coffee pot, her changing her way of sitting every time I looked up at her. At some point, she was entirely upside down, her legs thrown over the back of the couch. After a while, something finally caught my attention. I quickly called Carmilla over, and she joined me, sharing my headphones.

“... complaint at 231 Cloverfield lane, nearby personnel please respond.”

“Officer Price responding, am in the area, i'll check it out. Do you have specifics ?”

“Affirmative, officer Price. Got a missing person's report for one Edward Leeds, resident at 231 Cloverfield lane, appartment B, break--”

“Go ahead.”

“Got a complaint for a smell of rot coming from Leeds' apartment just now. Possible Major Crime, use code zero.”

“Copy that, am en route. Over and out.”

I looked over at Carmilla. That sounded a lot like something that could interest us. She had the same feeling, and we quickly made our way out. I typed the address into my phone as we took the elevator down. It was a bit less than a ten minutes away, which meant less than five in Carmilla's manner of driving. We were then quickly on the scene, and found the police car sitting in front of the building. I advised Carmilla to park a little ways away, as her car wasn't exactly blending in. We found a spot in a parallel street, and hurried over to the place.

“How are we supposed to get in ?”, I asked my partner in crime.

“I have my idea”, she told me, and undid her braid to tie her hair back up into a tight bun. “Just follow my lead, and we'll be fine.”

Intrigued, I climbed the stairs along with her, and I opened the door, as to be able to invite her in. As soon as pulled on the handle, however, I was overcome with a putrid smell, so thick it started to choke me. I covered my mouth with my sleeve, and reluctantly stepped in, inviting Carmilla to follow me. The door to apartment B was cracked open, which explained why the smell was so strong. Even Carmilla seemed a bit disturbed, which was saying something.

I once again was the first to step in, allowing her to follow. She then took the lead, as we were soon spotted by who I assumed was officer Price. She just had called for backup, and looked pale as a ghost.

“This is a crime scene, you need to step out of the flat”, she urged us, sounding nauseous, but trying her best to be firm.

“Officer Price, we are private investigators for MINA. I'm sure you understand the reason of our presence here”, Carmilla told her, taking a silky, sweet tone.

The officer seemed surprised, and opened her mouth to answer, only an instant, and closed it, as if she forgot what she was going to say.

“We'll need to take a look, please go get some fresh air”, she told her.

The woman seemed confused, but nodded, and left. I looked over to Carmilla. She winked at me, and crossed the living room. If she had seemed bothered by the smell, she barely winced anymore. I felt like I was about to puke, even with the double shield of my sleeve and my hands, but still followed her. Morbid curiosity, maybe. I knew I would regret it. We went towards an open door, leading into a dark room.

The blinds were partly closed, only leaving a thin stream of pale sunlight through. Dust swirled and sparkled in it, and I got lost in the golden dance a second, not really wanting to look anywhere else. My eyes took a moment to get used to the dark. The apartment was ancient, the kind you see on historical TV shows about the 19th century or something. Wooden floors, high ceilings. I started by those, expecting they would be untouched by whatever horror was burning itself into my nose and lungs. That's why I was all the more horrified to see the dark stains on the white moldings, dripping onto the chandelier, where, like garlands, intestines were hanging. Bile surged up my throat, and I almost threw up on the floor. Taking a second, eyes closed, I swallowed, hard. I hadn't paid much attention to the noise, and I only now noticed the buzzing of flies.

I gathered myself, and opened my eyes back. Carmilla was leaning over the bed, hands crossed behind her back. Carefully, apprehensively, I let my eyes follow up to what she was observing. You could definitely tell it had been a human man, at some point. Mostly naked, though strips of fabric clung to the skin, blistered and red, weirdly swollen, like someone tried to stuff him without really knowing what they were doing. Deep gashes ran across the torso, splitting it open, the broken ribs sticking out or sunken in. Most of the organs were unidentifiable lumps of meat, coated in a viscous, yellowed liquid, soaking the sheets and the skin in a sick, brownish sheen.

The part that disturbed me most, somehow, in the atrocious mess, was the left arm. Don't get me wrong, the skin was as red and swollen as the rest of it, but didn't seem to have suffered the same rabid violence as the rest of the body. I got closer, my interest and curiosity momentarily overcoming my disgust. It seemed Carmilla had the same reflexion. No wound seemed to have reached that part, which was odd given the left had been... gnawed, like a dog's chew toy. Only distinctive sign was a single puncture, right where you'd take a blood sample at the doctor's office.

Now that I thought about it, there was surprisingly little blood around the body. A few splatters, here and there, but nothing of consequence. The sheets, that I thought drenched in it, were only imbibed in the juices a corpse produces in decay, and the rot set the dark coloring. If that poor man was killed for blood, and if it had been transfused rather than drank directly from the source, that still didn't explain the carnage.

“This is not him”, Carmilla whispered, almost to herself.

“What do you mean ?”

“This”, she stated, a bit  of anger in her voice, “Is not the Elder's work. This... Undignified slaughter, this macabre display of gore is definitely not his signature move.”

“You think a human did this ?”, I squeaked.

“No. I think he already has created himself Hunters”, she told me, as if I was supposed to know what that meant. Seeing my puzzled look, she kept going. “Newborns, that get him the blood he needs to grow stronger, to survive. Who can't control their impulses.”

Her tone was so disdainful, it almost made me feel inadequate too. She advised we should leave, and I heartily agreed, not too keen on staying in the rancid place. As we left the flat, we started hearing distant sirens. As we passed by Officer Price, Carmilla told her we were never there, to which she nodded, and looked past us like we disappeared. We made our way back to the car, and as soon as it was in sight, I felt nauseous again, and Carmilla barely had the time to pull up my hair as I emptied my stomach onto a street bin. Feeling dizzy, my arms shaking as they held onto the edges of the trashcan, I was only a bit relieved by her hand, softly stroking my back.

“I need to shower for a week, now”, I croaked after spitting out the last of the bile out of my mouth.

She laughed and opened the passenger door for me.

“I'd be honored to help you with that as well.”

~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

Taglist : @carydorse @angelicdestieldemon @bloodhon3yx @thewondernanazombie @battocar @moony691 @mjlock @thebeautyofdisorder @festering-queen @paracosmfantasy @lost-girl-inc

[novaviis]

sick!dick au, part four. hooo boy.

read part one here. read part two here. read part three here. 

Dick has a good week. He doesn’t suffer any migraines or vertigo, he’s adjusting better to his medication so he’s not as tired, he doesn’t have any fits – it’s a small victory, but it’s the best he’s felt in months. With it comes a sort of foreboding, knowing that it won’t last, that soon enough he’ll be right back in hell, so he doesn’t take it for granted. He still takes it easy, if only to save the people he loves the heart attack, but he enjoys feeling good while it lasts. He’s almost like his old self again, more lively and bright, without that heavy fog of fatigue and illness clouding his smile.

Because he’s been on a streak of good days, Wally asks Dick out of the blue one morning if he wants to go out that night. Just on a quiet date, somewhere nice. The weather’s been good too, so Wally woos him over with talks of patio dinners and maybe a glass of wine. Dick doesn’t take much convincing. Wally just smiles and says good, because he’s been planning this date night for a while and it’d be a damn shame if the other half of the date didn’t show. Dick does mention that he’d like to get a light workout in while he’s feeling up to it, and oddly enough Jason offered to go with and spot him. Wally fakes surprise and it’s super obvious. It should have been suspicious.

So, Dick spends some time at the gym in the Manor, just some running and light stuff – he doesn’t risk the high bars today, not wanting to push a good thing and ruin it. Jason is being really… weird, though. Dick just brushes it off as him not wanting to be back at the Manor at first, but he’s almost drawing things out, distracting him so it takes longer to finish his routines. Then, all at once, he’s all about wrapping things up, pushing Dick toward the showers so he can get cleaned up and ready for his date. I really should have been suspicious, and in a way it was, but it’s easier to just brush off his brother being a weirdo.

Dick showers off and gets changed into the sort of casual formal wear he usually wears on nicer dates (though his and Wally’s definition of a “nice” date is anywhere that serves more than one type of alcohol and doesn’t have a condiment stand). When he’s ready he heads upstairs, expecting Wally to pick him up. Wally is there, waiting for him, but the car isn’t. Barely holding back a grin, Wally suggests that they take a walk before they head out, enjoy the weather y’know? Dick doesn’t want to be late if they have reservations somewhere, but Wally just laughs and tells him not to worry about it. So, they walk out to the garden. It really is a nice night out, just before dusk when the sky is stained with peach and lilac. Dick is so busy admiring it at first that he doesn’t notice when Wally stops. When he does, he turns, and finds that Wally is on his knee.

“You’re fucking kidding.” The words leave his mouth before he can think properly, but he’s got the biggest smile on his face and his eyes are already watering.

“Not on your life, Boy Wonder,” Wally grins back and faulters for a second as he reaches into his pocket. “I’m gonna be totally honest, I had a big speech planned about how much I love you, but… you look so damn good tonight I think I forgot all of it. So, what of it? You wanna get married right now?”

Dick is already nodding and pulling Wally up to his feet before he finishes, so it takes him a moment to register the right now, but he does, he asks Wally what he means. Wally is slipping the ring on his finger when he tells him that this was technically Dick’s idea. As he takes Dick’s hand and leads him around to the back of the Manor, he prefaces that they don’t have to do it like this, that there’s no pressure, that everyone knows the deal and if he doesn’t want to they’re just having a nice little party. Dick’s head is still swimming, and he can’t make sense of any of it until they walk around the corner and there’s a fucking wedding set up. It’s small, just immediate family and their friends (Wally’s family, aside from Barry and Iris, is missing but no one points it out). A little aisle, some fold out chairs, flowers and string lights all set up on the back lawn of the Manor. Dick is in total shock at first, and Wally is afraid he’ll be pissed that he essentially planned their wedding without him, and stammers out that they’ll do this for real one day, and he still stands by the fact that they’re not doing this “just in case” but he knew that this was what Dick wanted and it was worth the peace of mind – Dick just kisses him and tells him to shut up and marry him already.

It’s a quiet and simple ceremony, no bells and whistles, the officiant is from the court house, and it’s all tied up neatly within minutes – and no flash photography. The music is quiet in case Dick gets a migraine. At the after party, just a little dinner that Alfred was more than happy to put together, there are no dance lights – but hell, it’s no boring. It’s a night of laughter and love with friends. It’s all they need. Later that night, as they’re sharing their first dance, Wally feels Dick lean into him with his head on his shoulder. He feels a light wetness on his neck. For a single, terrifying moment, he’s reminded of that night at the Gala that started all this hell, when Dick collapsed against him just like this. He pauses, asking if Dick is okay, heart in his throat – but Dick just smiles and pulls back enough to show Wally that he’s just a little teary, that this is the best night of his life and he didn’t think it was possible to love him more. They’re married now, it’s official, and nothing can tear them apart.

And it’s not as if that was the “calm before the storm” and everything went to shit after that. Nothing that cinematic. There are rocky days, and there are good days, and there are very-bad-no-good-at-all days. Things continue on as before. Dick and Wally just take things one day at a time. Dick gets slammed with a migraine at work, and Wally has to pick him up and tell him regretfully, hours later when he’s a little more coherent, that he’s being put on sick leave. Dick does not take it well, but in a begrudging way, knew that it was inevitable.

Then, months later, Wally gets a call from Dick while he’s at the lab. He leans back in his chair and answers it casually, assuming Dick’s just calling to talk, maybe sort out dinner or something. All he can hear on the other end is heavy breathing. Wally sits upright in a second. Dick hasn’t had a seizure in nearly a year at that point. He was stupid enough to believe they wouldn’t come back. Dick sounds like he’s struggling to say Wally’s name, and all Wally can think is that he should have called an ambulance, that he would have if he’d been in the right mind, but Dick is clearly not in the right mind at that moment and the first thing he’d thought of was to call his husband. Wally’s knuckles are while around the phone as he asks Dick is he thinks he’s about to have a fit, and when Dick stammers out a yes, Wally tells him to stay calm, to lay down on the living room rug, and that he’ll be there – the sound of the phone dropping as Wally on his feet and running out in a nanosecond.

Wally arrives at their apartment in seconds, but it still doesn’t feel fast enough. Dick is already in a full seizure, dropped in the bedroom. Wally hates that he knows what to do now, and goes through the motions calmly on the outside even as his heart is racing. The seizure slows down, and Wally gets Dick’s medicine, some water, and waits for him to come to.

But this time he doesn’t. Minutes pass, and Dick doesn’t stir back to consciousness like he usually does. His eyes are half open, but unseeing, and as Wally starts to panic, Dick starts to seize again. They were always told to try to handle it on their own and let it pass unless something is wrong. Something is really wrong. Wally calls an ambulance, drops the phone halfway through the call, and has to put it on speaker while performing CPR because his husband isn’t fucking breathing, where the fuck is the ambulance?! When the ambulance does arrive, Dick is breathing again, if just barely, and they don’t protest when Wally jumps into the back with him.

It’s an hour later that Bruce walks into the hospital room. Wally is sitting beside the bed with Dick’s hand in his, pressing his knuckles to his lips as he stares at the heart monitor like he’s counting every pulse. Dick is still unconscious, covered in wires, pale enough that the gold band on his finger looks like it’s sitting against paper. Bruce scrubs his hand down his face and lays his hand on Wally’s shoulder. He spoke to the Doctors. They’re doing everything they can.

Wally just slowly shakes his head. No, they’re not. But he will. Bruce asks him what he means. Wally doesn’t respond at first. Just takes a long, memorizing look at Dick, before standing up and leaning across the bed, pressing a firm, almost desperate kiss to his forehead. When he straightens up again, he looks back at Bruce. The Doctors said they needed Dick’s family medical history to be able to properly diagnose him, to predict where this illness was going and how to treat it. Fine. If they couldn’t find the Grayson medical history, Wally was just going to have to find the Graysons.

He can’t help but find it bitterly ironic that after everything he did to make sure he was allowed in that room, he was now walking out.

[hlwim]

Not All of Me Will End [1/3]

Summary: Nothing remains of her but what must be left behind. Tags: Character Death, Cancer, Tragedy, Angst, Bittersweet, Post-Canon Pairings: Royai, Edwin, Havolina AO3  ff.net

who lives

Smoke gathers beneath the ceiling’s blackened tin tiles—a match for her mood, and for the roiling green clouds that gather low over the city. Riza could add a little cirrus stream of her own, but all she has is the cigarette holder to tap against her lighter, ivory clacking on silver again and again. They’ve been waiting nearly an hour, stiffly side by side and still in uniform, as though either of them will be going back to work afterward.

“What’s the point of rank if I can’t use it to get anywhere?” Roy sighs, pulling out his pocket watch to check the time, and he smiles at her. He doesn’t know the way that she knows. “Are you alright?”

“Of course,” she says. “I’m sure it’ll only be a few more minutes.”

A wave of vertigo ripples upward between her eyes—and the half-filled lobby blurs into a slumbering beast, churning, burbling, gasping with thickened lungs. The steady heartbeat of patients marching the corridors and tangled in their IV lines, the thrumming of each slippered footfall that plays her broken nerves to insentience—she calms by pressing her fingernails deep into her palms, carving long purple furrows across the spongy flesh.

The nurses chitter like insects across the floor, hiding their oddly jointed limbs beneath dark blue dresses, pressed leather boots, starch-white aprons crossed over the back. Hats pinned to hair carefully pulled into uniform curls—such dreadful little halos. One of them approaches, with black eyes and pin-pricked red lips and a slithery grayed tongue.

“Captain Hawkeye. Doctor Hauer apologizes for the delay. He’s prepared for you now.”

Roy’s hand on her back is not subtle or standard politeness—he has caught her twice in the last month from falling back down the stairs. Something in the exertion of climbing would send a sheet of foggy blackness across her vision and then, just as her fainting spell during the commemoration parade, Riza would groggily wake to find herself propped up by his steadying arm. Even now they are keeping to a slow pace, passed on every fifth step by an annoyed orderly or harangued custodian.

Doctor Hauer’s name is at last set on the glass of his door, in careful white etching—he’s new from the north, highly recommended and with a fellowship purchased directly from the führer’s considerable coffers. At least, from all this meaningless mess, Central City Hospital can boast of retaining the best diagnostician in the country. He won’t look like much in print, but she can imagine, somewhere in a distant memorial garden, his stately stone glower presiding over a mossy plaque dedicated to his advances in various medicinal sciences. Such men are almost never properly paid tribute in life, so she can find some comfort in knowing she probably wouldn’t have lived to see it regardless.

“I’m sorry,” he says, no preamble, no offer of tea, “but it is exactly as we feared.”

“Cancer.”

“Yes.”

Riza nods. She knew, in all the ways that Roy did not, and his fingers tighten painfully around hers.

“Are you certain?” he asks.

“I spoke to my colleagues in West City and East, and they both concurred with my initial reading. The shadowing on the film clearly indicates wide-spread metastasis.”

“What does that mean?”

Hauer glances at Roy and then back to Riza. She can, to some extent, respect his desire to keep her the center of the conversation—but it feels so unnecessary. Like the broken beaks of a thousand furious birds, rain begins to peck at the glass behind the good doctor’s head.

“Although the size of the mass in your lungs leads me to conclude that it is the originating site, your previously described symptoms—dizziness, hallucinations, blackout spells—strongly suggest that there may be a mass in your brain as well.”

He points, with alarming accuracy for not even bothering to turn his head, at the tacked-up transparency of her chest. The closest she will ever get to witnessing the true complexity of her own desiccated husk, save for running a knife beneath her ribcage and peeling back what flesh is found there.

“It also appears to have reached your lymph system. We could draw blood to confirm the presence of malignant cells moving throughout your body, but at the current rate of growth, in a matter of months…”

A twisting grimace.

“As they say, truth will out.”

“Is that—is that how long…?”

Hauer’s eyes are a brackish-green, painted with flecks of yellow by an unsteady hand. In one eye, the sclera holds a streak of bright red, and the pulse it hides could almost be visible, she thinks, by changing the angle of her observation. His left eye flickers first, followed by the right a quarter-millisecond after.

“It’s difficult to say with any accuracy. The disease process is unique to each person.”

“So then what’s our next step?”

She is not trying to memorize this moment or even Roy’s face—she is merely observing the cool milky sheen of his skin, the youthfully short lines bundling above his brows, the click and clack of his tongue and teeth as he seeks a futile reprieve. They—Hauer and Roy, and not Riza, who folds up her hands in her lap and watches Roy’s face without feeling the slightest change in her own—discuss medication and surgery and radium therapies with such naive hope cutting their lips to ribbons.

“No,” Riza says. The birds have left the window—for all its crescendo, the storm was brief and will have left only a discomforting haze to line the streets and sidewalks.

“Riza, there’s still options—”

“Not for me.”

“But they’ve had success—”

“In skin cancers. And most of the patients went on to develop a different cancer and died anyways, after a few years.”

He wants to protest, his eyes a pair of open wounds twisted wide by the gears of coming grief. The clouds have cleared from his side first—he sits in a shower of sunlight and reaches to her, delicately seizes her hands and pulls them to his lap. They stand sharp as plucked feathers against the dark wool of his uniform.

“I read the same studies as you,” she finishes.

“But it could work.”

It is difficult to explain the logic of what remains so… obvious. Hauer has withdrawn, content to study the bleed and retain his commentary. Riza, in a half-remembered instinct for solace, runs her narrow thumbs across the wide expanse of Roy’s palms.

“Cut me open,” she says, unblinking, by force of love and misery willing the certainty to bridge the empty air between them, “and scoop out what they can. Then weeks under one of those awful lamps or even worse—a tube of radium sewn up inside me until it burns through.”

He shakes his head as she speaks—his imagination is well-stocked with atrocity and no doubt illustrates each word with a facsimile of what its truth might be.

“Is that what you want for me?”

Ruined by all of it—torn open and shredded by the indifferent abyss. She sees him as one might see a lone telegraph pole with its lines all cut loose, fading fast into a horizon that welcomes no minute alteration. He squeezes her fingers, trying to coerce heat from his calloused skin into her. He speaks very quietly—not a whisper, but an inability to draw sufficient breath for each word.

“I want you to live.”

She smiles, somewhat, tempering the cruelty with a cold sigh and a tremor which passes, without origin or end, between their joined hands.

“Well,” she says, “I’m not going to.”

Roy’s car has broken down again, so they take a black taxi back to Central Command. The driver seems to sense their disquiet and leaves the divider up, assuming possibly that they have a need to talk—but they only stew in a long silence. The rain begins again, and ends, and then restarts and finally quits the greened sky for yellowing pastures somewhere south.

“Why didn’t you tell me about the hallucinations?” Roy asks. He speaks to the closed window, hands curled to fists in his lap, brow knit, frowning, eyes darting from face to face when they stop near a crowd. He will want a solution from his frustration and will find nothing.

“I don’t know,” Riza says. “It only happened a few times. I thought sometimes it hadn’t happened at all.”

Anger rolls from his shoulders in cutting waves. It radiates, and she wants to lay her hands along the span of his back, to absorb his heat and make it her own, to become the yawning, roaring void that has opened inside him: a little well of sadness, which seeks an ocean to drown it.

“I’m sorry.”

Their attendance at Grumman’s table is required, and she tells him immediately, wishing no delay to the plans that now must follow. He rages, of course, stalking the edge of his favorite Aerugian rug as he narrows his sights on the appropriate prey.

“I built that hospital!” he snarls, expelling foul breath with the lie. “Every brick belongs to me, and if they think they can reject my granddaughter for treatment—”

“I don’t want treatment,” Riza says, turning her fork to cut into a fig. “I made the choice.”

He softens to speak to her, just as always—she is glad, again, that he had no choice but to give her up as assistant. Familial affection is smothering at any distance.

“But, my dear heart, you’re far too young to give up.”

“No, I’m not,” she says, arranging her plate and cutlery for the ease of the maids, who will sweep the room spotless once they’ve gone through to the library, each night making such quick work of erasing all traces of their disorderly occupation. “I’m going to die.”

Grumman rages through the nightcap, malcontent as always with realities outside his making. Roy won’t defend her outright, but he’s far enough to her side to ignore Grumman’s attempts at alliance. Riza nurses a tiny glass of port, happy to let silence be her best answer.

She is the last to leave the library but stops short of climbing the first step. Roy will have found a room for himself somewhere in the east gallery—still trapped by the old etiquettes. They will not share a bed under this roof, which seems a trifling thing and yet—she can almost relish the possession of feeling again—some silly part of her is hurt. No matter that they’ve made love before, or that long before the tendrils of this nightmare began to tug at her ribcage, they had made such public promises.

Grumman had demanded an announcement and then disseminated one himself, when neither of them proved obliging. An alert of required celebration, and the drab party that followed—she thinks she still can smell the smoke of dusty candles and the flowers left too close to open flame. Smoke like meat, like the rabbits she hung inside that big hollow oak and the door she’d made of bark to cover, to pack with clay and come back later when Father lost his patron and they’d gone three weeks without anything but bread and foraged apples—

Riza curls her fingers around the ugly finial at the base of the bannister, feeling the weakness drain through her grip. There is no smoke here. The engagement party was months ago, and all its guests have gone home to sleep. Very carefully, she slides down to sit on the last carpeted step.

This is not the main staircase of the house—the grand incline that sweeps from the gilded foyer up to the narrow walk which runs from the east wing to the west—but a disused passage back to the kitchens. The sort of walk servants might have taken fifty years ago, slipping surreptitiously from their rooms in the attic to the basements. What need did they have for decoration? This landing holds a vase long empty of flowers, a dusty candelabra, and an overly-ornate bureau. And overseeing all, the painting.

Liesel Grumman, aged sixteen years, preserved and pickled in a brine of oil pigments and glaze. Her hair is styled in loose curls, her narrow body draped in white, and her hands are clasped primly on her lap—not one on top of the other, but palm to palm. Her eyes are blue, her throat bare, and her skin smoother than the brushstrokes that conjure it.

But the varnish is yellowing. The painting has gained a haze, and the corner of the frame is chipped of its gild. Riza shuffles herself forward along the carpet, not quite steady to stand on her own, until she is kneeling at the base of the bureau, looking up into her mother’s eternally averted gaze.

Berthold had had nothing to say on the subject of his late wife—other than that she was late and his wife—and Liesel had left precious few letters for perusal. Vaguely, Riza remembers a cardboard portrait of their wedding buried somewhere deep in the cellar: a matching pair in black, Liesel smiling gently and Berthold scowling.

If there had ever been anything like a journal of hers, Grumman never spoke of it. Despite the elopement which had separated them forever, he seemed to still think of his daughter as loyal, darling, sweet, pure, incorruptible—but her gaze in the painting is more dead than demure. The bureau is weighted and steady as Riza ascends, leaving her shoes to topple in the carpet, her elbows digging into the rough panels on either side.

Her eyes are a detached, icy blue. Round, large, surrounded on all sides by sclera barely distinguishable from her snowy white skin. Riza presses gently on the prick of her mother’s painted iris, flattening the peak. She didn’t really look like this. She never could have—and anyway, if she did and Riza knew, the memory is gone now in a foggy haze of black.

It is happening more and more—things Riza knew not because she could conjure the memory itself but because the vague shapes of it still threaded themselves in and out of other recollections. Impressions of a movement, of a tree weeping leaves into a river, a negative space between thought and thought, marked out only by its absence. It’s creeping closer as well, swallowing whole days and nights of solitude. She finds herself frantically scribbling out every thought that might someday find importance, before they can flit away from her fingers.

And what she does remember still—played out before her helpless gaze like a zoetrope glued to her face. A whirling vortex that melts to a view of Eastern Command, where Grumman brought her to the painting before even telling Riza who she was. Who she was—peering down from above the fireplace, amber-trapped, perpetually pre-elopement, pre-death, pre-decay, prevented from any comment on her own current condition—and he leered like a supplicant, offering up no sacrifice worthy of the penance sought in such adolated immortality.

Riza slides from the bureau unsteadily, spiked with sudden fear that the world has shifted itself while her back was turned. And it has—the shapes of Grumman’s old sitting room recede, bleeding backwards into carpet and empty wall and worn step, and her own shoes, kicked over and empty. She can’t remember how to get back to her own room, or what twists and turns will take her to where she is supposed to be. This isn’t home—it’s a stop in the pilgrimage to the end, and she sets her left hand on the wall, ready to resume.

By morning, Grumman has attained some level of acceptance. He is the last to come down for breakfast, white-faced and gray-shadowed, and he takes his seat without bothering to bring a plate.

“I’m going to see General Armstrong today,” Riza says. A maid woke her in the parlor at sunrise and lead her back to her room, where she slipped uneasily behind the mask of a dressing gown and slippers.

“You don’t have to,” Roy says, as his spoon scrapes across the bottom of his cup.

“I should,” Riza replies. “I want to.”

The grapefruit tastes like nothing, but she still winces. Grumman’s butler, with a stare of gravest concern, brings the old man some eggs and sausages, which he does not touch.

“When you return,” he says, barely managing to unfold his napkin, “we might discuss hiring on a nurse or two. To help out.”

“There’s no need. I’ll be going back to the house next week.”

His lip curls up like a burning leaf.

“You can’t possibly—”

“It is my home,” Riza says steadily.

“Wellesley is too far.”

“I had a telephone line installed. The tenants left last month.”

Roy’s stare shifts up from the newspaper he hadn’t been reading, fixing on her—furious, offended, incredulous. He must have thought they were in this together. Riza stares back, her mouth flat as her mood.

“I’m going back to the house,” she says. “There is no argument.”

“Riza, please, you must be reasonable about some of this—”

“Every Hawkeye,” she says, slow and deep and clear as a tolling bell, “for two hundred years was born in that house, and now the last of us will die there.”

Grumman’s fogged glasses clink against his spoon, and he sets his fingertips against each eyelid.

“I wish you would stop saying that word,” he mutters.

Roy waits at the bottom of the stairs with her dress coat—undeterred. They have covered the subject of stubbornness extensively in their time together, so she just sighs and turns around, allowing him to slip the sleeves up her arms and slowly pull each button through its slit. Her whole uniform has been freshly mended for this: its last exercise in the sun. The piping is bright white, the braids are neatly aligned in rows, and each metal pin of rank and office and regiment sparkles with shine. He keeps himself to civilian clothes.

His leave of absence has no doubt been expediently approved, or sits atop that neglected pile of forms awaiting the führer’s signature. Another piece in its waiting place.

They could take Grumman’s car, but she doesn’t want Armstrong to be immediately defensive. Roy orders a cab, and she almost wishes it could be the same driver as yesterday. This one is fine enough, although he smiles with too many teeth. Riza dislikes him instantly and wants, viciously and without cause, to see him frown instead, thinking to dim his irreverence with a remark about her condition. But that was her father’s way, never hers, and the impulse passes.

Roy keeps to his side of the bench when she steps in and settles against the door. She is beginning to miss him, even inches apart, and soon he’ll have his chance to miss her as well. Without hesitation, Riza slides her hand across the polished leather padding and slips her fingers between his.

He looks at their hands first, and then up to meet her gaze. She’s still half-sure he’ll pull away. There is nothing to say to the darkness growing behind his eyes.

The Armstrong estate suffered yesterday’s rain just like the rest of the city—every time, Riza expects it all to be unblemished and opulent, recently emptied of party guests and yawning for new attention. But instead, it is a quiet house hunched up and drawn in, dripping from its cornice like a near-empty wine bottle, unstoppered and tipped on its side.

There is a butler to let them in, and another butler to announce them. Having no business but escort, Roy is shown into the library, and Riza takes the next step without him.

Maybe they’re not all butlers. Three of them stand against the wall in the stately dining room, livery pressed to sharp creases and stares scalding. There must be one table for parties, and this smaller table for every day. Lieutenant General Armstrong sits at the head, newspapers spread on her left and correspondence unopened on her right, with her picked-over breakfast plate neatly in the center. Her brother is also on the right, sitting far down the table—but no doubt as close as she would allow—and he stands when Riza enters.

“Madame General, Captain Hawkeye to see you,” the door-opening non-butler says, bowing deeply and backing from Riza’s peripheral vision before returning to upright.

“Good morning, Captain Hawkeye,” Alex says. “Would you care to join us for breakfast?”

“Thank you, no—I’ve eaten already.”

“Is there some urgent matter?” the general interjects. “I didn’t send for you. I thought you were off planning your betrayal of a wedding.”

She does not look up from the newspapers, squinting to follow her forefinger across the narrow print. Alex gives her a look of almost matronly disapproval.

“Olivier doesn’t mean that, Captain. We’re both very happy for you.”

“Don’t speak for me,” she snaps, now lifting her coffee for a sip—obstinance. Riza used to find that horribly endearing in a commander. “The captain’s choice in romantic partner has already been reflected in her annual review.”

“Olivier, don’t be impolite.”

“I wonder if I might speak to the general alone,” Riza says. Her knees are beginning to strain, and the heels of both feet grow hot. She might have laced her boots too tight in her haste to leave.

“Of course, Captain. Please excuse me.”

Alex nods, rises, and ushers the butlers from the room. The general turns to her correspondence, unfolding a concealed pair of reading glasses and setting them on the end of her nose.

“I can’t believe the cheek of you bringing that worthless cur into my library.”

She loves scolding over a meal. How many bottom-rankers had Riza brought to her table at supper, every one of them knock-kneed with hunger-strengthened fear, to receive a lashing of words no less capable of stripping flesh from bone than the stiffest leather strap?

“It’s bad enough you’ve accepted him—and now he follows you around everywhere like a sick dog, so eager to throw his victory in my face.”

She points with a butter knife.

“You know I take this all as a personal offense.”

“I know, ma’am.”

But what could she do about it? Her refusal would have changed nothing more than—distance? Perhaps Riza would never have gone in to check. The air around Briggs is so thin, and she’d been teased for her inferior Western lungs more than once. Perhaps one morning an enlisted aide would have been sent to her bunk, to rouse for inspection, and she would have just been found, blue-lipped and silent forever.

“Don’t tell me that he’s gone and knocked you up. The thought of that idiot propagating—”

The sting is surprising.

“I’ve said something cruel, haven’t I?”

Riza opens her eyes—surprised again, to find that she had closed them. The general has set aside her letters and her papers and hidden once more the glasses she wants no one to know of, and she watches Riza with her hands folded on the edge of the table.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “It’s serious. And I’ve made some mockery of it.”

The overly-familiar upward rush of illness—Riza is standing close enough to the table to grip the back of a chair before she can completely collapse.

“Excuse me, ma’am, but I’m afraid I must sit in your presence.”

The general returns to her own seat slowly, too startled to conceal her concern. Beneath the table’s edge, Riza’s hands are shaking.

“What’s going on, Captain?”

“I came to submit my resignation, ma’am.”

She nods. She might be angry, disappointed, annoyed—but none of this shows in the knit of her brows.

“And I can’t refuse. No matter if I wish I could.”

“No, ma’am.”

“Is it—is there anything—”

A fragment of a generous offer. A lilt in her voice, a downward shift in tone, maybe even something close to a tremor. They are not—will never be—anything resembling friends. And there is such deep relief in it.

“But I’m sure the führer’s exhausted every possible avenue—to confirm…?”

Riza says nothing. The general nods, sliding into her earlier pose, back rigid against the chair, hands shuffling through the correspondence pile, eyes averted—but Riza knows she is not done just yet.

“You’ll stay here, with your grandfather?”

“No, ma’am. I own a house in the Western District. We’ll go there in a few days, when the rest of my affairs are settled.”

The room has reoriented itself around its own wavering silhouettes. Riza can stand without shaking, and she sets the chair back against the table with a muffled click of polished wood on wood. She can even manage parade rest, fixing her stare on a single flower carved into the painting frame directly above the general’s head.

“I’ve briefed Lieutenant Falman already on my projects and as specifically as possible on expectations in serving as your interim adjutant.”

“There will never be an equal replacement.”

Riza’s fingernails bite briefly into the flesh of her palms.

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“I suppose that’s it, then. You are dismissed.”

She never looks up. Riza could imagine a slight twitch passing through the general’s occupied hands, but why bother? This is almost exactly what she wanted.

Yet another butler meets her outside the dining room. Roy has broken the containment of the library, and he does not smile at her return.

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #165

“if you’re in danger, i’m here to save ya.”

Do you own a water gun? No. What item most embarrasses you to purchase? I wouldn't really know, I haven't bought much for myself... but I suppose probably some kind of sex toy. Favorite thing you’ve ever painted? Two meerkats grooming. It's on a huge thing of burlap. Are there any songs that remind you of your mother? "Wherever I May Roam" by Metallica, because she aaaalways says she wants the lyrics "my body lies, but still I roam" on her urn. I'm making goddamn sure that happens when she passes. Have you ever picked wild flowers? Yes. Have you ever walked through a forest? Yeah. Have you ever seen a mountain in person? Yes. Do you prefer jam or butter on your biscuits? Jam. Have you ever explored somewhere abandoned? Yes, but I wanna do it morrreee! Take my camera with me! This is exactly why I'm getting into exploration channels on YouTube, finding shit like this. I'm addicted to Sam & Colby because of this. Where is the last place you went to as a tourist? Chicago. What country do you most want to travel to? Germany. Do you have a garden? No. Have you ever kept a physical, hand-written journal? Yeah. Have you ever caught a butterfly in your hands? I know I've picked up injured ones as a kid, dunno about otherwise. Are there any interesting landmarks where you live? Not that I can think of. Which fairytale is your favorite? I'mma throw hands if you say Shrek isn't one. Which mythological deity or creature is your favorite? Dragons. Which type of muffin is your favorite? Chocolate chip. What is your favorite shade of blue? Pastel. Do you prefer iced tea or hot tea? Iced coffee or hot coffee? Hate both. Do you like sprinkles on your ice cream? Nooo, not a fan. Honestly, have you ever crashed a party before? No. Do you know how to do the moon walk? No. What is one of your favorite comedy movies? White Chicks. Has anybody ever told you that you have a good singing voice? Yeah. Onion rings or french fries? The latter. I am /picky/ with onion rings, but usually don't like them. Has anybody ever told you that you talk too fast? I've been told so when I'm hyper. Who is the best cook that you know? I don't know. I guess Jason was? His initial career path was chef, and he was in fact great at it. What’s the largest amount that you can juggle at one time? I can't juggle. What was your favorite thing to go on at the playground as a kid? Swing. Do you know how much you weighed at birth? How much? 7-something pounds? When you do a puzzle do you find all the edges first? Do some people not??? (If you sleep with the tv on) what’s usually on tv when you wake up? N/A Who was the last person to ask you to hang out? Did you agree to hang out with them? Colleen, and no. Have you ever had to take a stool or urine test? Why did you have to do this? I've had way too many UTIs because I used to drink literally zero water, so. Before my surgery, they needed a sample too to ensure I wasn't pregnant. Is there a food that you eat basically every day? What food is that? No. Do you have Oovoo? No. Do you know anyone who has ever been in a movie? Who and what movie were they in? What was their part? No. Do you know anyone who has had salmonella? Did you ever have it yourself? What about e coli? No. When was the last time you brought a pet to the vet? What was wrong with it? Last winter when we had to put Cali down. A tumor on her spleen ruptured and filled her body with so much blood that she almost couldn't breathe as her lungs were running out of room to expand. She also had some kind of mass on her liver that was probably causing more issues. Name something that you used to do with your family that you no longer do with them or at all: Trick-or-treating. Who was the last member of your extended family to visit? Where were they visiting from? Grammy and her husband. They were heading back down to Florida. Have you bought any new clothes in the past week? Nope. At what age do you think you’ll be ready to have children? Never. If I wanted kids, mid-20s/late-20s, probably. How many children would you like? Once more, if, two, or even just one. I'd really want my child to have a sibling at least somewhat near in age, but I don't know if I could handle two. Is there anyone in your friendship group that your parents don’t like? Not anymore. Have your grandparents ever asked you about your love/sex life? No. Have you ever been diagnosed with anything unexpected, mental or physical illness? How did you finally find out? Hm... I think everything I've had was at least somewhat expected. Like, I knew something was wrong. The most surprising though was I suppose inactive MRSA after my surgery and the incision re-opened to heal on its own for seven damn months. ACTUALLY, vertigo was random as hell. I started experiencing it and went to the doc. Where do you like to sit when you’re on the computer? In bed. What is the biggest decision you’ve made in the past year? Return back to school. Would you rather hike through the desert, the prairies, the forest, or the tundra? The prairies. If you could reconnect with someone from your past, who would it be and why? Megan. We were absolute best friends, and hopefully she's grown up by now. What movie/show "emotionally scarred" you as a kid? Courage The Cowardly Dog. Watched it anyway lmao. What’s your favorite flavor of jello? Strawberry, probably. Have you ever been thrown out of the movies? No. What would you do if you found out you were moving to Tennessee? I wouldn't complain, Tennessee is beautiful. My brother lives there anyway, and I haven't seen him in years. What does your favorite hair tie/accessory look like? I don't wear any. Do you have a favorite kind of milk? 2%, whole, etc? 2%, maybe. Do you have a favorite drummer? No. Are there any symbols that have personal meaning to you? i.e: dice, a necklace, etc. What are they? Not off the top of my head. What’s the biggest spider you’ve come across? Writing spiders. Have you ever been bitten by anything venomous? No. Do you know anyone who has been knighted? No. Which Mario game would you say is your favorite? That is, if you even like Mario? I've only really played Mario Kart. The others don't interest me. Do you have a deviantART account? Yes. Have you ever had acne? If not, you’re so lucky. I did through puberty, of course. Mine was rough then. It stopped when I was about 19. Now I just have the occasional blemish or two when I'm on my period. Ever walked into a facility of the opposite gender - like restrooms? I did once in elementary school on a work day (teachers come to get shit done; Mom was an assistant teacher) with my friends lol. Ever lost your car in the parking lot? If so, did you use your car alarm to find it again? Don't have my own car. I don't even know if Mom's ever had a car with an alarm. Has there ever been a Christmas where you had to do without gifts-wise? No. Do you type with capital letters and proper punctuation? So this is super weird: It's actually whatever I find aesthetically pleasing wherever it's being written, as well as what "voice" sounds more appropriate??? But I usually write properly. Honestly, do you think that you’re going to be an overprotective parent? Hypothetically once again, I know I would be. The world's evil. What was the last kind of chips you ate? Hot fries. What is one thing that you really wish you could understand, but don’t? Economics so I could actually know how the fuck to handle money. What brings out the worst in you? Treating me like a child that knows nothing. How many friends do you have that don’t smoke? Idk. There's only one friend I see even rarely, and he doesn't though. Doesn’t it drive you nuts when people think they ‘need’ to have a boyfriend/girlfriend? Yes. You need to learn that you're not an unfinished puzzle. You're complete on your own. Some people were really destructive as a child, were you? No. On average, how many songs do you listen to in a day? This greatly varies. Do you ever buy your pet(s) birthday or Christmas presents? Always. Do you think your current relationship will last forever? No exaggeration, no over-optimistic thinking, yes. One thing you promised yourself you’d never do and then did? Attempt suicide. Are you more scared of going to the doctors or dentists? Doctors. Have you ever rolled off your bed in your sleep? No. Who is the most overrated singer? Uhhh. I dunno. Maybe Ed Sheeran. What is your greatest weakness? I guess how insecure I am. Do you have any pets that you had since you were born? No. Favorite undersea creature? Seahorses. Favorite type of chocolate? Milk. What toys did you play with as a child? Plastic animals, Pokemon figures, Barbies or Bratz if Nicole wanted to, stuffed animals... What types of music do you listen to? Loads of different kinds of metal. I'm finding I'm really getting into indie as well. What, without fail, makes you cry? Mark crying for any reason be it sadness or joy I am pathetic. What makes a movie really enjoyable for you? Well thought-out, interesting plots and charismatic characters. Name a game you are really good at. Shadow of the Colossus. The most childish part of your personality? I can occasionally be a bit of a brat if something I'm serious about doesn't go my way oops. What did you last put on a piece of toast? Butter, cinnamon, and sugar. Have you ever witnessed a serious physical fight? No. Do you enjoy corn on the cob? YES, though my lip ring makes it a pain. Have you ever bought alcohol or cigarettes for someone underage? No. If you use Snapchat, have you ever had a screenshot taken of you? N/A When in a waiting room, how do you pass the time? Mess around on my phone. Usually wander through Pinterest. What was the last brutally honest comment you made about someone? I'm not sure. What is your favorite thing to do with just one friend? Go out to eat and talk. Have you ever been kissed under the mistletoe? By who? Jason may have, but I don't remember. Are you prone to paranoia? YUP. Has anyone ever bought you a ring? Mom and Jason. Accidentally dropped the one Mom gave me down the drain semi-recently, then Jason's broke within a few weeks. Kept the jewel for a while but eventually threw it out. What was the most stressful project you had so far while in school? Jesus, when I was still in a game design class and we had to read the most fucking boring book and then do some analysis shit of it. Who in your family are you closest to? Mom. In your opinion, what is the scariest natural disaster? Earthquakes, maybe. Or tornadoes. What time of the day is the best for you? I'm usually in my best mood in the morning. Do you have an electric toothbrush? No. Have you ever had to board up your windows because of a hurricane? No. What do you think about employers checking on personal sites before hiring employees? Sometimes I actually think it's a good idea, other times no??? Like you can get important details of someone by looking at what they post, but at the same time, social media doesn't always portray someone that well. You can get the wrong idea. Have you ever visited anyone in a rehab? No. Ice in your drink: yes or no? No. Do you prefer getting money, gift cards, or an actual gift on your birthday? Money. When was the last time you got a new bed? Is your bed comfy? Long time ago, and I guess. What was the last job you applied for? Ummm I'm not sure. Oh, I think for newborn photography. Do you have any mild food allergies? No. Who was the last person you were with that smelled REALLY good? My younger sis. Last person to make you seriously mad? Colleen. How is your mom? Stressed, always. Do you like going through old photos and recalling memories? Depends on the picture. And time. What movie coming out are you most excited to see? Why? The live-action The Lion King because it's my favorite movie. What song really gets to your heart and inspires you? "Life Won't Wait" by Ozzy. Do you see a lot of stray animals around your home? No. Do you have fireflies around where you live, or do you wish you did? In the area, yes, but we don't really see them in my yard much. Did you used to do Easter egg hunts when you were a child? Yes. Have you ever bought anybody a mug? Omg, I found one that said, "Be nice, I'm in control of your happy pills" in this random store once and I HAD to get it for my psychiatrist. He's not supposed to accept presents, so we just pretended it was from mom lol. He has it on his desk. Do you believe in divorce? In cases such as abuse, infidelity, or other pretty serious issues, yes, but I usually don't advise divorce. Communicate like mature adults and fix what you got married for. Who taught you the most valuable lesson in life and what was that lesson? "Deal with the past or the past deals with you," maybe. My Holly Hill teacher taught me a million lessons that greatly affected my outlook on many components to a healthy life. Have you ever fallen into a hole or crevice whilst hiking? While getting to fishing spots with Dad, my foot may have slipped through rocks or something. Have you ever had a serious conversation with your dad? One that I remember. He took me out to lunch one day when I was still struggling with Jason to just talk to me about relationship stuff. I cherish that memory dearly. In YOUR eyes, which of the three is the most dangerous, and which is the least: Marijuana, Alcohol, Cigarettes? Alcohol, then I'm not sure. Marijuana has a lot of dangers people like to ignore, but then again, it has some health benefits while cigs have none. What is the nerdiest thing that you own? Probably the big Illidan poster I have beside my bed lul. What is the preppiest thing that you own? *shrug* If you are popular, have you ever wondered what it would be like to have no friends? What do you think it might be like? I already just about have none, and it's lonely as fuck. If you are a loner, have you ever wondered what it would be like to be popular? What do you think it might be like? No. I don't seek popularity, just not such a lack of company. Every tattoo has a story behind it; if you have any, what are the stories behind yours? My semicolon butterfly is tribute to both the butterfly and semicolon projects. "Ohana" is obvious. "How rare and beautiful it is to even exists" just speaks deeply to me as someone who wanted to die for years. "Perfectly flawed" also means a lot to me and comes from an Otep song of the same name. "You're awful... I love you!" written in Sara's handwriting I adore because we pretty much call each other evil all the damn time all the while loving each other. :') Who do you know that has a particularly funny or annoying laugh? HA ME I HATE IT. Is there anything you do that is annoying to your friends or family? Oh, I'm sure. I'm told all the time by people to make myself at home when I'm at someone else's house standing like a statue, for one. I do this sooo much, even a bit at my sister's house when it comes to wanting a drink or something. My pacing makes people anxious, I'm told constantly. Sure there's more. What is the most number of sodas that you have drank in one day? I. DON'T WANT. TO KNOW. Until two-three months ago, I lived mostly off soda, and I do NOT know how I didn't gain weight from it. Now I absolutely refuse to go past two, but usually only get one. The idea of drinking as much as I did almost makes me nauseous. Have you ever gone through a period of mass weight-gain/weight-loss? What was that time like for you? Well first Paxil made me gain weight, but I quit it and did WiiFit all summer and lost 40 pounds. I was so proud of myself. Then, I was put on Abilify when I had no need to be, and let's not say how much it made me gain because my then-doctor was a fucking idiot that thought I was doing something terribly wrong and kept me on it, not knowing the side effects. :^) My current psychiatrist was lost entirely as to why I'd been prescribed it, and he immediately connected my weight gain to it because it *murders* metabolism. Was taken off it immediately, boom, started to melt weight with no change to my diet for quite a while. I'm still far from my normal weight. I could write a novel on how this was/is for me, but I'll just say I'm bitter as fuck and ~so~ confident in my shit body. (: If you have one, do you and your significant other have a similar taste in music? Yes. Longest plane ride you’ve ever been on? I'm sure to Michigan, but I don't remember how long it was. I was a kid. Favorite kind of bean? I absolutely loathe beans. I can't even swallow them. If you had to move to another country, where would you move? Canada, realistically. I'd love to live in Germany, but that would be much different from where I am now and would require learning an entire new language. I like Canada anyway. Does it bother you when people call you ‘ma'am’ or 'sir?’ No, it's polite...? Did you partake in senior skip days? Yup. Would you ever consider having an abortion? If my life was endangered, yes, and if - God forbid - I was raped, I possibly would because of how scarring that would be. I've said before I think pregnancy would legitimately be traumatic to me, and if it was because of that, I couldn't even begin to imagine. Have you ever lived in an apartment before? I've told the Jason & co. story before. I also stayed with Colleen for at least a month when I was technically homeless, and she was in an apartment then. Have you ever been questioned by the police? No. Have you ever been to an amusement park out of state? Yeah. Have you ever been responsible for someone’s death? Yeesh, no. Do you know a lot about serial killers? No. Have the police ever been looking for you? HAHAHAHA YES. When I went to the beach one time, my sister, a friend, and I went walking along the shore one night and apparently Mom didn't hear us mention it. Freaked the fuck out and called them to find us. Sorry, Mom. Where do you get most of your accessories from? *shrugs* Maybe HotTopic? Do you know how to shoot a gun and hit a target? No. Are you a good listener? It's complicated. I try very hard to be, but even with people I seriously care about, my mind can wander. But I really try. What was the last bad thing to happen to you? Serious, continuous loneliness. The last good thing to happen to you? I guess finding out I don't have hypoglycemia. Do you think today’s youth is being corrupted/messed up because of TV? It depends on what they watch. Some things they of course shouldn't see, but people tend to take it too far. Have your parents supported every decision you’ve made? I'm sure they haven't. Do you like to listen to rock music/screamo music when you’re angry/upset? Lol did you really just group rock and screamo up???? I'm pretty much always listening to metal or rock. I don't like purely screamo. Are you embarrassed to tell your parents you love them around your friends? Not at all. It bothers me immensely when it does bother people. What’s your favorite sappy/romantic song? Shit, I dunno. I'm a sucker for a lot. Do you know anyone who has changed their first name? Not legally, to my knowledge. Which one of your senses would you be the most devastated to lose? Sight. Hearing almost ties it. Have you ever dated someone who posted a ton of selfies on social media? No, but why does that matter??? Do you know anyone who has been on life support, and survived? I don't think so. Do your parents have a strong relationship together? They're divorced. Mom fucking hates Dad, while he's totally over it. When was the last time you attended a religious service of any sort? Well over a year ago. Do you ever feel like you're sharing too much about yourself online? Eh, nah. Are you on good or bad terms with your most recent ex? Good. What was the last necklace you wore? A spiked choker. Have you ever read any of Charles Darwin's works? No. If there was such a thing as a mental health first aid kit, what would you want to be in it? Oh boy. I'd say it'd be personal to each person. Do you think there are more dimensions than what we're able to perceive? Maybe. What was the last carbonated drink you had? I think Mtn. Dew. Does anyone in your family have schizophrenia? Yes, my half-sister. What light in your house was the last to have a bulb burn out? Living room. Have you ever been fired? If so, did you get unemployment benefits? No. Never really worked long enough to be. Do any of your neighbors have loud children? No. Have you ever been in an abandoned house? No, we were too scared to go past the doorway lol. What's your favorite YouTube channel? UM Markiplier????????????????????? Do you go to church? No. If so, what denomination is it?  N/A What is your favorite thing to make wishes on? Just birthday candles. Don't believe that does anything, but. C'mon, you gotta. What is your favorite phase of the moon? Full, duh!! What is your favorite way to get high, if applicable? N/A Which name do you like best: Cora, Flora, Dora, or Laura? Laura. If applicable, what is your favorite version of the Bible to read? N/A Are you contemplating/debating something right now? No. Have you ever had a book completely come unbound from its cover? Childhood books, probs. What design is on your shower curtain? Blue and white waves, I think?? I clearly pay attention to something I see every day. What’s the highest you can count in a different language? To like a million in German. Where would you like to be buried? Cremate me, please. Have you ever seen a ghost orb picture? Quiiite a lot in our old house. Do you think abortion should be illegal? No. Do you know how to double-dutch? I did as a kid. I couldn't jump into it, though.

[raging-violets]

Refuge | BarryCade one-shot

Fandom: The Flash

Pairing: BarryCade

Summary: After a tough battle against Central City's finest, all Barry wants to do is get some sleep. Barry/Cadence. One-Shot.

A/N: This one-shot can also be found on FFN. This an be considered a deleted scene from Friction from The Flash and The Flame series. If you want more of their domestic moments, check out my one-shot collection that's specifically for it, Naturally, on FFN as well.

~~~

Rain pattered along the windows of the metro as it sped along the tracks of Central City. Not quite 'The Flash' fast, but fast. Fast enough. The city flew past, wheels of speeding cars throwing up curtains of water onto the empty sidewalks. Umbrellas rendered useless by the wind that sporadically blew, rain slanting enough to cause a reprieve against the window. Then the wind lessened and it was back, drumming against the window panes, the only sound filling the empty car; creating constellations that changed every second as the beads ran in jagged streams down the glass and melted together. Lightning and Fire.

And it was on that metro that Barry heaved a sigh of relief. His shoulders slumped forward. He reached up, pressing the pads of his gloved fingers into the tight muscles of his neck. Worked, to rub them loose. He yanked at the cowl that rested around his neck, finding it a bit too tight.

Barry glanced to his right to see how Cadence was doing. She sat in her seat in an oh-so casual way, and not as ladylike as her mother would've reprimanded her for. Her legs splayed open, like a man, hands clasping the sliver of the seat between them. Her head lolled forward, goggles of her suit forever resting around her neck when relaxing. Her chest rose and fell so softly Barry wasn't sure if she'd gone to sleep. She, otherwise, showed no signs of fatigue from their day filled with battles against Central City's finest. The Rogues Gallery as Central City Picture News called them. Iris, beaming with pride, had come up with that one.

They were risking things, Barry knew, of being dressed in their suits, identity defying measures relaxed, taking the train into the city instead of going back. But it wasn't like, in a few seconds, they wouldn't be able to conceal themselves once more. The chances of anyone stepping onto the metro were slim to none. On a gray, rainy day, if they were smart, people stayed inside and waited for better weather. The Rogues weren't as patient. It was Cadence who had suggested they take the train back to STAR Labs rather than their usual route of running and teleporting.

"To cool down," She said.

Barry immediately saw through her. Saw through the confidence she always exuded to keep others from worrying about her. From getting too far into her head to see the truth. Could tell from their signature hug at the end of a fight, how hard she'd held onto him. Nevertheless, he agreed with her. For once, the last thing he wanted to do was run. So they waited around the corner, out of view of the cameras around the station, teleporting and super speeding on the nearly empty train—into an empty compartment—the last second before the doors closed and it pulled from the station.

The intensity of the rain increased prompting Cadence's eyes to blink open. Her gaze shifted, head turned to watch the show. Barry let out a low sigh, a smile coming to his face. He watched the line of her eyes as they flickered back and forth, watching each individual rain drop.

Finally, she turned to him and said, "That was a tough one."

"Understatement of the year," Barry agreed. The Top and Mirror Master had really thrown them for a loop. Bar having had been trapped in another mirror, what he'd been through was much worse.

"I thought I lost you today," Cadence said softly. Softer than Barry'd ever heard her. The fire metahuman and his partner of the last three years lived up to her power. She brought a fire and energy to her life—and his—that was hard to ignore. She almost always smiled, laughed, teased, enjoyed everything life had to offer. The most serious she'd become was when fighting their enemies and coming to terms with their morality.

"You didn't," Barry reminded her.

"'Yeah," her voice was even softer now.

It was close, Barry had to admit. A close call. Being entrapped in a glass box that slowly grew smaller and smaller while the other couldn't move due to extreme cases of vertigo…he wouldn't wish it on Eobard Thawne, even though he wanted nothing more than to see the demise of the man that'd torn his life apart.

Barry reached out, flattened his hand against Cadence's leg, moving it soothing circles. A grin came to his lips. "I'm still here, aren't I?" He asked.

A smirk came to her lips. "Because of me."

He pretended to be offended. "How do you figure?"

"If I wasn't around, you'd've been dead a long time ago, Barry" She finally looked at him, her eyes betraying how she really felt. She truly had been scared to lose him, the love of her life that day. It had to be torture, to watch him struggle to phase through a box that continued to painfully grow smaller while she was prone on the ground, unable to stand or even teleport in a straight line had she wanted. Her eyes flickered over Barry's face, finally settling into an expression of soft amusement. "You look tired."

Aka, he looked like crap.

A resigned chuckle escaped Barry's lips. He could feel his shoulders drooping even further, his eyelids, that he worked hard to keep up in case someone else entered the train, fell as well. "I'm exhausted," he admitted.

He could heal fast, but those were superficial wounds. Pure exhaustion took a bit longer, something the two of them had experimented with before. The fight had taken a lot out of him—and wasn't nearly as fun as the alternative. Not that using his superspeed and fighting bad guys wasn't as fun as it'd always been, but still…

Cadence reached out and grabbed his hand, her warmth spreading to him already making his eyelids threaten to close completely. He could already feel his body starting to come alive, a sure sign that her powers were working with his, giving him an extra charge. "Go to sleep." She said it so simply, almost as if she were giving him an order that she would her son when he begged to stay up 'just a few more minutes'.

Barry shook his head. "Someone could see us, Cade."

"I don't think seeing us sleeping is going to be newsworthy," Cadence snorted.

"Cade…" He gave her a look. Almost a stern combination of 'that's not funny' and 'you know what I meant'.

"I'll keep an eye out. Anyone who comes onto his train won't see anything but a smoke bomb going off."

"That's what I'm afraid of."

Cadence looked at him tenderly, reached up and ran her gloved fingers over his hair and to his neck, pressing her fingers into the knots in his neck and shoulders. A low moan escaped Barry's lips. That fight took more out of him than he thought. "If anyone deserves a break, it's you. You've carried the weight of the world on your shoulders long enough. Let me do it for a few minutes. If we get caught, then you can yell at me."

"I wouldn't yell," Barry murmured, his words falling to his lap.

"Trust me. You yell."

Barry didn't have the energy to become simultaneously annoyed, amused, frustrated, and embarrassed as the way she always managed to make some of the most innocent things sounds much more loaded than they should be. Instead he smiled, as he always did, and lowered his head to her shoulder. "I love you."

"I love you," Cadence easily returned, voice light and airy, slowly succumbing to sleep.

She was warm, as she always was. But the warmth grew and spread to envelop over the two heroes, like a blanket, when she tilted her head and laid it against his. And for the rest of the ride to STAR Labs, Barry took comfort in the refuge he'd found during some of the darkest times of his life and was constantly by his side.

They slept peacefully.

[lazywriter7]

Firewalking

(Because I apparently crossed 50 followers at...some point... have an old ficlet I’d written for an Imzy prompt ages ago XD Rolls in at about 2.3k) The cotton of his shirt was sticking to his armpits, sweat-sodden and uncomfortable. The heat was a physical presence weighing down on his skin. The air itself was hot; gusts of it blowing across his face, his jaw, his bare lower arms and barer feet. Every gust seemed to coax more salt-laden liquid out of his pores, till he was drenched from head to toe yet still unable to find relief. 

The only thing stronger than the sensation of oppressing heat was the smell −  god, the smell. Ash and smoke, with an overpowering undercoat of incense; it filled his nostrils and filled his lungs and tasted dusty on the back of his tongue, till every breath seemed to struggle against it. His head was dizzy with the smell, his chest full of it, his heartbeat long gone erratic…but that wasn’t the worrisome part, was it? The worst was yet to come.

“Mr Stark?” He heard, and turned his head around, vertigo attacking him with a vengeance even with that small movement. The smoke in the air obscured vision, his eyes already smarting with it, but the concerned look on the man’s swarthy face was obvious. “Are you sure you want to go through with this?”

Tony turned his face back around − steady, steady does it − and stared straight up front, soot clogging the water in his eyes, vision a smear of black with a river of red stretching ahead. “I fly in the air for a living, Jayawardene. What’s a bit of − what do you call this, again?”

“Firewalking.” Jayawardene pronounced, scepticism and trepidation warring in his voice.

 “Yes, that.” Tony said, eyes scraping over the banked coals, black over red, red over black, fire and brimstone and... yeah, his feet were getting sweaty. “Walking barefoot over a bed of hot embers. No biggie. I’ve done worse.”

 “Not the best reason to be doing things.” The man tossed back in reply, and what had Tony’s life come to, really, that he was being judged and pitied by strangers?

 “Hey, this is what I do.” Tony tossed back just as easily, and took a step forward towards the coals. Another. His toes were dipping into warm soil. “Fly to Monaco for business, take part in a Grand Prix. Come to Colombo for diplomacy talks, walk over several feet of burning coal.”

 A Grand Prix where you crashed your car. Jayawardene didn’t say, because he was a good guy who’d been assigned on Tony-detail and didn’t want to get reamed out by his bosses. Disappointing really, that he’d apparently matured enough to sign accords and conduct negotiations with foreign officials but there still was a Tony-detail.

 He was ten inches away now. Five. The smell was getting stronger; Tony pushed back the coughing fit inside his throat with inhuman strength, words undercut by hoarseness. “Why do the other crazies do it anyway?”

 “Firewalking has been an age-old practice for many people and cultures in different parts of the world.” Jayawardene said in quiet reprimand. “It’s a rite of passage. Sometimes religious, sometimes not. It’s considered a test of an individual’s strength and courage. The fire burns off your sins…sloughs off all that extra weight, coals acting as tools of penance…and it is said that if one is pure of heart, then he or she can emerge from the test unscathed.”

 One inch. “You do know that’s just physics, right? Sure it looks impressive, walking on fire. Not even coming to thermal effusivity…the embers have extremely low conductivity, and the ash covering them lower so, did you know they were actually used as insulation in ice boxes−”

 “−and if one walks fast enough, no damage.” The man smiled grimly. “You’d be surprised at how many people still burn.”

 “…I’m not disrespecting anyone though, am I? Sacrilege? I’ll stop.” The offer escaped his mouth while Tony continued to stare at the glowing path, tiny orange sparks escaping into the dense air every few seconds. The smell wasn’t coming from the coals.

 “The festival ended hours ago.” Jayawardene confirmed, apparently unable to lie for all of his disapproval and pity. Good man. “We were about to sweep the coals away anyway. No sacrilege.”

 Water had a higher specific heat capacity than whatever the path of fire was made of, that would mean the feet’s temperature would technically change less than that of the embers; the temperature of the embers should be below flashpoint now anyway, so no new generation of heat − that was good, if he kept moving, no more than one second spent in contact with any one ember−

 “You should wipe your feet. Wet feet increase the chance of burning.” Jayawardene voiced, except Tony heard test of strength, test of courage, burn off your sins, pure of heart and the facts and theories speeding through his brain morphed into a screaming silence, except for who am I kidding, and he stepped forward.

 Hot, was the first thing, supplemented by a hysterical You think? which of course was supplemented by the parts of his head that couldn’t stop gibbering that there was fire under his feet. Pain sensors sparking off in various parts of his feet simultaneously fuck fuck fuck danger signals blaring in his brain, wow, he thought he’d gotten rid of them ages ago keep moving you idiot.

 He was aware of the strangest things. The sweat pooling in his hairline, the cuff of his shirt scratching at his wrist, his heart a racket of tha-tha-thump tha-thump − who needed love when you could walk on fire to skip a heartbeat − his feet moved forward, ash scraping against his heels, soft coal crumbling against the tender skin of his mid foot too hot cant cant cant…

 It was like his entire feet were giant, shining blisters, being carefully ironed with each step keep walking. His knees were liquid, he was going to fuck − a stagger and Tony’s head reeled with nausea, nope, can’t vomit on fire, definitely can’t fall to the ground to vomit because it’s on goddamned fire why did I do this why do I always−

 Because he’d seen a video. He’d seen a video, and he was in Colombo, and firewalking had some goddamned symbolism and iron could only be forged in fire. Because he could feel the heat wafting off the screen, and Siberia had been cold, and he hated deserts, sand or snow.

 And he was standing still, and looking down, eyes suddenly captured by a piece of black coal peeping between his index and his middle toe. There was a char mark running up the side of his big toe…he could almost feel the water getting squeezed away from his skin, the blister puncturing, the tissue getting burnt away. He stood still while a man yelled in the background, and watched the fire eat away at the ground beneath his feet, numbed mind trying to push through the sense of…. rightness. Reality had just gotten literal. It was almost appropriate.

 More, and desperate yelling. It seemed to be coming from a closer point − Tony’s head jerked up, and his bleary sight registered Jayawardene at the far end, huddled with a group of three or four others, face ashen and clearly about to leap into the path himself. Something about that knocked the numbness in his head askew; Tony shook his head one more time, registering the runny leg muscles barely keeping him upright, and staggered ahead, will and endorphins alone pushing him through.

 Everything was a bit of a blur following that − several strong hands stretching towards him to pull him out, his knees buckling to an inch above the ground, swaying into someone’s grip and being led to a…somewhere, somewhere he could sit and feel cool wood under his thighs, though everything from his shin downwards was still numb.

 “You shouldn’t have done that.”

 Tony glanced at the source of his words − down and down, where a man was kneeling on the ground, washing his feet. He probably hadn’t noticed it earlier because of said numbness. Some distal part of Tony’s brain that hadn’t been endorphined into silence tried to jerk his feet away reflexively − his toes twitched weakly, and the man put a steady hand around his ankle and looked up.

 He had dark eyes and a saturnine complexion like all of them − and yet, and yet, that tiny part of his head mused, not like them at all. He was staring Tony right in the eye, and for the briefest second, there was a…Tony blinked − a distortion in the jawline area, and the man’s eyes flashed blue.

 Photostatic veil, something whispered in Tony’s muddled mind, as the…as Steve continued to wipe his feet down with care. Over and over; he had no cloth or scrub, he just dipped his palm in the bucket at his side, scooping up water and pouring it gently down the slope of Tony’s feet. Streams trickled past his instep, under the ridge of his ankles and down the front of the arches − and Steve’s touch followed their paths carefully, cool fingers soothing the inflamed skin. He rubbed over the tips of the toes, soft scrapes over the nails washing away the ash, smoothing over the reddened nail beds. A gentle pull forward, and Steve reached back to clasp Tony’s heels, circular motions of thumbs coaxing the irritation away.

 “You…you aren’t supposed to pour water on burns.” Tony couldn’t do much better than a croak, throat still parched sandpaper. He couldn’t seem to be able to stop blinking. Had to be a hallucination. Adrenaline, endorphins, epinephrine, norepinephrine…other scientific words.

 Steve didn’t pause even for a second, working his fingers down from the heel to the arches of Tony’s feet, the drag and pull and contrast of temperature feeling…wonderful. “You aren’t burned.” He said simply.

 “No…that’s. That’s.” He wasn’t stringing words into a coherent sentence either. Last time…the last time they met. Things hadn’t been that wonderful. He had to remember that…didn’t he? “I stood still. I wasn’t supposed to…I stood still and it was definitely more than one second per ember − ”

 “When do you ever do what you’re supposed to.” Steve said, and he was rubbing away the charred mark on Tony’s toe, and not sounding vexed or resigned or worst of all, cold and resolved and…why was Steve touching his feet again? Hallucination hallucination hallucination. “You didn’t burn. You’ve got some pretty terrible blisters, some of which have burst. But no burns.”

 “What are you doing here.” Tony’s mouth said. Yes. Good mouth. That was the right question. Better yet: get lost and stop touching me and what are you thinking, they’ll catch you. They’ll get there (though maybe not that last bit).

 “Heard you were coming down to Colombo for some final negotiations with the Asian powers.” No more water now, Steve was simply…patting the skin maybe, to dry, or…stroking, why would he−

 “Keeping an eye on me?” Tony said, and tugged one foot away from the…stroking.

 The sudden jerk had brought the folded hem of his trousers down to his ankles; Steve sighed and reached forward, folding it up back again to shin height with deft movements. Tony waited for the touching to come, but Steve only curled a thumb under the hem and held on, bowing his head slightly to the earth. “Not what you think. We’d heard news of−”

 “We meaning you and the other Avengers.” The hoarseness took the impact out of the snapping, but Steve flinched all the same. It looked worse, somehow, with the height difference and the bowed head. Tony didn’t feel bad.

 Steve raised his chin, dark eyes catching Tony’s own. “Yeah. We heard news of splinter cells of A.I.M hovering around here to muck with the talks…and I’d rather you didn’t have to test the validity of self-defence against the Accords.”

 So you were helping me…not break the Accords. Tony didn’t have to say anything out loud; Steve’s mouth curved down, and the thumb that had been curled around the trouser hem trailed downward, the blunted nail drawing against hairy skin. It reached the beginning of Tony’s instep and paused there, Steve’s fingers fanning out to wrap around the ankle again, resting there.

 “You believed in something. I have missed…I used to know what that…” Steve stopped with the slightest hint of frustration, then started up again, fingers briefly tightening around the ankle. “I wanted you to be able to hold on to that.”

 His touch was still cool against Tony’s skin, but rapidly beginning to warm up. It was one point drawing attention in Tony’s mind, another was tossing over the words that had just been offered to him and − no you keep telling yourself that, no I have to interfere if I see a situation pointed south? No countering said beliefs, or invaliding his opinions, or−

 “No deriding my actions?” The words escaped out loud, and Tony refused to take them back.

 “You’ve flown in the air.” Steve said, and his thumb brushed back and forth, soothing and desperate. His eyes were glimmering, and for all their disguise, in them Tony could see the colour of the sky. “Of course you could assume the reins of fire.”

 One last, seeking stroke and the hand uncurled − both hands, pulling away and leaving Tony’s skin feeling bare. Steve looked up one last time…looked closer, because he was drawing closer and − Tony kept his eyes open, as Steve left a kiss right between them, an impression of dry lips a little above the bridge of his nose. He pulled back, and Tony breathed.

 “Besides…firewalking. Penance. I can understand that.” Steve said, a tired smile flashing on his lips for a second, before his hand brushed past Tony’s toes one last time to secure a grip over the bucket of water. He straightened up and pushed himself to his feet without bending, casting a long shadow over Tony’s seated figure, pail swinging absently in his right hand.

 “I’ll be there.” Steve said, and Tony closed his eyes to hear him walk away. Hear his last words, and I can understand that and jagged writing that said if you need me, I’ll be there and how…

 The footsteps were gone. He was gone.

  How, for the first time in forever, the apology didn’t sound like complete bullshit. 

[itsybitsylemonsqueezy]

Guess Who’s Back?

First of all: I haven’t seen the new Gotham yet. Please no spoilers. I will cut off a finger if y’all can hook me up with a file, please and thank you.

So, with that business out of the way, now for my review of the Colorado Morris Ale:

FUCK MOUNTAINS. NO BUT FUCK MOUNTAINS. FUCK ‘EM. WHO DID THAT. WHO INVENTED THAT SHIT. NO. REJECTED. ABSOLUTELY NOT. NEVER AGAIN. FUCK. MOUNTAINS.

I now COMPLETELY understands why Cecil Palmer is always “Mountains? Noooo. I mean, who has ever actually SEEN a mountain?” because, I kid you not, driving over the border from Kansas into Colorado there was a fuckton of clouds real close to the horizon in a lovely iron slate color (they later rained and THEN sleeted on us for TWO DAYS fuck you very much) and I genuinely could not tell cloud from mountain for the LONGEST goddamn time. Like... we were almost all the way under the Rockies before I was convinced mountains were real and not some fictional cryptid made up to scare children. Mountains are not actually real, friends. They are not. No. None of that. Not real. Fake.

Also: so many cryptids in Colorado. It’s official.

Fun fact: there is legitimately a town named Kanorado on the border between Kansas and Colorado. Fun fact. America is that trash.

So, as fun as the drive out was, did I mention being sleeted on for 5 miles?, it was NOTHING compared to the drive back. Ho.ly.shit. I cannot even... what a GLORIOUS day we had. Oh my jesus lord. But I will get to that later. I just... I do not, at present, fully have the capacity to communicate the majesty of what the fuck happened this morning. SO MUCH. SO MUCH HAPPENED.

Anyway, after 14 hours of driving, we finally get to Deckers, CO, which is the tiny dwarf cousin of Colorado Springs, and we think ‘hey, we’re here!’ BUT NO. OHHHH NO FRIENDS. We get to drive an ENTIRE FUCKING HOUR. A FULL HOUR. WINDING OUR WAY UP AND DOWN UNPAVED ROADS UP A FUCKING MOUNTAIN SIDE. A FULL. GODDAMN. HOUR. IN THE CLAUSTROPHOBIC SHEER CLIFFS OF THE ROCKIES, ON A SHOULDER-LESS ROAD BORDERING THE PLATTE RIVER, OVER GRAVEL, DOWN 15 DEGREE GRADES, TO GET TO THIS MOTHERFUCKING CAMP SITE. Holy goddamn christ kill me. Fuck me. Fuck this. And FUCK MOUNTAINS.

To the everlasting credit of the ale board, the location was fucking beautiful and extremely accommodating despite the remote-ass location. Like, I do want to say here I had a good time, the camp was VERY beautiful, warm, with easily accessible electrical outlets and facilities. I’m just complaining because HOLY HOT DAMN WHAT IS THIS SHIT. MOUNTAINS. THEY ARE NOT REAL. FUCK THAT SHIT.

I will say... mountain air is some of the nicest smelling air you’ll ever get. It’s clean and sweet and you feel cleansed just being there. You know, aside from crippling vertigo or elevation sickness which MANY in our party suffered at one point or another. Including me.

My Friday night was miserable, I acclimatized badly and I did not do anything I should have to help myself. But, my weekend wore on SIGNIFICANTLY better and I would rather start rough and end well than vice versa. And I got out of this ale pretty much everything I wanted to experience, so I feel pretty great, honestly c: But I did have a nasty mental breakdown Friday night, accompanied with vomiting into Saturday morning and a general queasiness that never really left me until I was out of those goddamn mountains. FUCK THAT. FUCK THAT MOUNTAINS. NO ONE NEEDS THAT SHIT.

So, I didn’t get any dancing in Friday night. But Saturday morning, feeling marginally better and less overwhelmed, I did participate in my first mass dance and attempted some basic Cotswold hankie waving, so... there was that ^^; And we WERE dancing outside for that on a lovely flat pitch by the campsite, but unfortunately, the weather decided to thunder. And rain. And sleet. So we all had to move back inside and do our show dances in the dining hall because Colorado weather is TERRIBLE. But, I go through the show dance, which is what I wanted, I kept up with my stepping, and it went really well ^^; Up until the part where I threw up again... up until that ^^; But! The show dance was lovely and I was pleased to do my team proud c:

Then... The Tours. Okay, so, after showing off to each other, every single Morris team, in full kit, loaded onto 3 school buses to take us BACK down the mountain to perform Morris in local venues. Because... you know, we like to share. And the actual touring was great, we got to do mixed sets of different teams sometimes and amuse locals and sometimes they even fed us, but OH MAN. Fully grown adults on elementary school buses taken down the SAME unpaved, narrow, mountain pass we had to take to get UP HERE. OHHHH THE JOY. THE RAPTURE. THE ABDOMINAL DISCONTENT. twice a day we loaded into those buses to be hauled up and down the fucking mountain. Twice a day the vertigo, the ear-popping, the claustrophobia, the nausea. Basically... FUCK. MOUNTAINS.

But, by the end of Saturday I could eat again and keep it down, which was a win, we had sung songs in a local bar, which was a win, I had started to make friends with a BRAND NEW Border Morris team called Caprock from Texas, which was a bonus win! And I got to sit on my girlfriend’s lap, which was just nice X3 The ale, while fun, was a real stressful time, so snuggles was good whenever I could get them.

I actually SLEPT Saturday night and woke up refreshed Sunday after dealing with a searing migraine Saturday, on top of some violent nausea, and two days without sleeping more than 6 hours put together. So, Saturday was a FANTASTIC reboot to the system to put all my pieces back together to actually FUNCTION Sunday.

Sunday began with workshops, which is simply a set of stations where some teams set up to teach dances or figures or methods and such to each other. We weren’t sure I’d be healthy enough to be of any help today, after a rough two days, but I was feeling great and quite unexpectedly got the opportunity to teach Peacock’s Feather to some VERY fast learners may I just say ^^;

Peacock’s Feather is unusual because it is a 3-hand dance so it is not quite symmetrical. And this was the dance I was trusted to teach, even as a new person with only 9 months experience under my belt, 8 if you consider I was injured with a fracture for awhile ^^; But, here we were, so I did it. I taught a whole dance by myself (with some excellent oversight from a teammate and aid from our musicians). And I really don’t want to take much credit for it, both of the people I was teaching were much more experienced dancers than I and were very enthusiastic to learn any kind of Border dance. But it just... really boosted my confidence to do that, to be trusted to do that and to see success. I totally wasn’t expecting to be able to teach all of it, I thought maybe I’d manage a few figures, but we got through the whole thing and I was just so proud ^^; It was a very good start to the day for me.

As we closed our workshop, just outside, our new Border friends, Caprock, were teaching the Impossible Dance. That is a 6-hand dance, so called because it has CRAZY complicated crossing AND stick throwing. You know. Just for added risk : | It’s fucking beautiful to watch though, lemme tell ya. Welp, I didn’t actually get to start learning that dance, but I did get to help Caprock out ^^; They had no musician with them for the workshop and needed a way to keep time because they initially started too fast, NOT a thing you want to do in this dance, so I offered to keep time for them by banging a stick on the ground ^^; Literally, genuinely, this is what I did, someone handed me a long stick so I wouldn’t have to bend over and I just tapped the butt of it on the ground at a steady pace while they practiced ^^; I honestly had a great time being useful and watching the practice, even though I couldn’t contribute much. I was really happy to make friends with them, I really admire their dance style.

After that, TOURS. More of the nightmare bus ride yay! But! We danced in the shadow of Pike’s Peak and ended our ale officially having danced at 8600 ft. So. There’s a thing. How we were any of us standing and breathing at the end of this is a fucking miracle to me.

So then, early this morning, we began the drive home ^^; and... holy goddamn motherfucking christ... I don’t think I have words to do it justice. Mainly because a lot of the shit that made it SO GOOD was dependent upon the pre-existing social dynamics of our team and the built-up stress of the ale and VERY little sleep in stupid cold weather in a high altitude. But... all of THAT bullshit aside, everyone in our car MULTIPLE TIMES voiced that they would prefer death to this as we cautiously rolled our way down the unpaved paths either by leaping off the edge of the road into the river, aiming the car into one of the several friendly, helpful boulders in the way of the “road”, or just slamming the car into the rock face of the cliffs as SEVERAL of the confusing signs suggested we do. Other sights of merit: a “BUMP” sign next to the WORLD’S TINIEST ASPHALT DIVOT after driving 45 minutes on FUCKING GRAVEL, a LOCAL man having to pull off to the side of the road next to us, white-knuckled, biting his lip, clearly having a panic attack, “Hidden Driveways” ???, parking signs next to LITERALLY no parking (we determined parking was in the actual river), and the ever popular “no, THIS is the way out, BACK up the mountain!” : ||||

Bonus: I have thus far failed to mention THERE IS NO FUCKING CELL SERVICE IN THE FUCKING MOUNTAINS. NONE. NONE AT ALL. NONE WHATSOFUCKINGEVER. NOT A FUCKING BAR THE SECOND YOU START DOWN THAT GODDAMN PATH UNTIL YOU’RE BACK OUT ON THE HIGHWAY. So, communicating with each other this weekend was a REAL TREAT as none of us had ANY POSSIBLE MEANS of communicating with ANYONE not in shouting distance. IT WAS GREEEEEEEEEEEEEAT. SO GREAT. So, coming down the mountain, DESPERATELY trying to escape and crawl back to St. Louis, none of us can use our phones for ANY navigational assistance, right? WRONG. ONE of our teammates MAGICALLY FOUND A MAP ON HER PHONE. WITH NO SIGNAL. HOW??? NO ONE KNOOOOWS. Because SURE AS SHIT none of the REST of us could find a fucking signal, much less obtain a map! And here’s the kicker: as soon as we had cell service again, her phone stopped working. I shit you not, her phone went TOTALLY SCREWY and we drove around in the SAME FUCKING INTERSECTION for like 10 goddamn minutes with a grand total of a 5 U-turns I think JUST there. And OH. THERE WERE MORE U-TURNS. SO MANY U-TURNS. OODLES OF U-TURNS. U-TURNS FOR DAYS. U-TURNS ON THE MOUNTAIN EVEN. YOU EVER TRY TO U-TURN ON A MOUNTAIN? MY GIRLFRIEND DID, IT WAS NINE CIRCLES OF BALLS. I WORSHIP HER WITH UNDYING DEVOTION.

It was. A fucking. Time.

In summary: Fuck Mountains.

[punmasterkentparson]

A Late Night (With Sake)

(ao3)

i got inspired on the walk home from the station last night.

Alexei takes Kent out for sushi because Kent’s never been.

“I’ve had takeout sushi before, at my friend’s place,” Kent had said, when asked his opinion on it. “It’s not bad.”

“Takeout,” Alexei had repeated, and then shaken his head. “Is good, but not same as real Japanese restaurant sushi.”

“Raw fish on rice, what’s different?”

Kent is, at present, learning exactly what’s different.

“Here,” Alexei says, and delicately picks up a slice of a salmon-avocado roll with his chopsticks. He holds the morsel across the table, inches from Kent’s lips. “Has little taste of lemon. I think you like.”

They’re in a private alcove, seated on opposite sides of a low table with only flat mats to sit on. The floor is tatami and their shoes are in cubbyholes outside the dining space. There’s a button to call their server, and Kent can hear other people talking and laughing in other alcoves throughout the restaurant, but it’s all muffled through layers of wood and insulation.

Five plates of sushi are spread on the table between them. Alexei has been feeding selections off them to Kent since the server left ten minutes ago. Kent can use chopsticks but why the hell would he bother? There’s a self-satisfied smile on Alexei’s face that grows every time Kent opens his mouth and lets Alexei rest the sushi on his tongue.

Kent chews the salmon-avocado roll thoughtfully. “Yeah, I taste the lemon. Goes well with the fish.”

“I make connoisseur of you yet,” Alexei says, and takes a roll for himself to eat. His shirt sleeves are rolled up and his tie is gone, plus he’s undone the top two buttons of his shirt. His suit jacket is on a hanger behind him and his three hundred dollar Tag Heuer watch is on the table at his elbow. His hair is coming loose of the product he worked into it that morning. Kent’s never seen Alexei all made up for the office, only how the seams of that persona come undone at the end of the day.

Kent is still in his work slacks and has his tie on. Alexei had picked Kent up from work—had parked his sleek, red Tesla outside on the curb and texted Kent from the front seat. When Kent had slid in and closed the door, Alexei had curled his hand around the back of Kent’s head and guided him into a slow, sexy kiss with enough tongue to make Kent’s pants tight.

“This car is really quiet,” Kent had said five minutes later when they’d been driving for a bit and he’d regained his senses.

“Is electric.”

“What’s something like that go for?”

“This model, seventy thousand.”

“That’s not bad. Uh, speaking of cars, you know mine’s still in the parking garage across from my building, right?”

“I know. We come back for it later, is okay?”

“Yeah, it’s fine.” The garage was open twenty-four hours. Another few bucks on his ticket wouldn’t kill him.

Moreover, those few bucks were buying him this entire evening. Kent pours himself more expensive sake and takes a good sip. The burn as he swallows is soft, not sharp, the taste heavy and acidic.

Another sushi piece appears in front of him.

“Here. Plain tuna, is good with sake.”

The fish is savory, the rice a bit sweet with vinegar. The flavors melt on Kent’s tongue. He makes a throaty noise of enjoyment as he swallows.

“Is good?”

Kent grins. Alexei’s eyes are so interested in his mouth. “You tell me,” Kent says. He puts a slice of tuna roll half in his mouth and gets up on his knees to lean across the table.

“That is not how you treat good sushi,” is what Alexei says, but the crinkling of his eyes betrays his amusement. He catches Kent’s tie in one hand and reels him in, until Kent’s got two hands on the table and is stretched all the way over it. Only then does Alexei crane upwards to bite off the protruding bit of rice and nori. His lips brush Kent’s. Kent feels Alexei’s mouth moving as Alexei chews and swallows.

“Is very good,” Alexei agrees, and the way he says it—deep and rough and oh—makes Kent think he’s about to get ravaged on the table. But Alexei just pecks him on the mouth and releases Kent’s tie. “You want try crab next?”

Kent chuckles and slides back down into his seat. “Sure.”

When they leave an hour later, Kent’s head is pleasantly swimming and his stomach feels just this side of too full.

“You have red cheeks, ptichka,” Alexei teases once they’re out on the sidewalk. It’s almost deserted, with just streetlamps to show the way. The sky is dark and lit with stars. “Maybe you need time to walk off sake.”

“I’m gonna need a week to walk off that meal,” Kent says. “Fuck me, that was good. I’m never eating takeout shit again.”

Alexei chuckles and guides him along with a hand at his back. “Takeout not shit. Just not as good as Akabe.”

It takes Kent a moment to identify that as the name as the restaurant. Then he laughs. “Babe, I might be drunk.”

Alexei laughs, too, and moves his arm to cover Kent’s shoulders. “So, we walk.”

“You have the best ideas.” Kent gropes until he gets his own arm around Alexei’s waist. It’s cool out but he’s got his suit jacket back on, and the warm weight of Alexei both around and against him. It’s a great night for a walk.

This part of the city is full of more bikes and pedestrians than cars. Now, it’s mostly just empty and closed up, with only a few determined restaurants or late-night bars throwing light onto the narrow streets. They walk, wrapped up in each other, and there’s no one around to mind. It’s not the first time they’ve gone out for food—the third time, actually—but it is the first time they’ve strolled down a street as a pair.

Kent enjoys the hell out of it.

They talk little. They turn down a side street and go through a residential area full of thin houses and low apartment complexes. Then they pass by a park, and Kent stops in his tracks when he sees a swing set.

“Babe. Babe, look!” Kent points vaguely and wiggles out from under Alexei’s arm. “Come on, we gotta swing!” If Alexei tries to call him back, he doesn’t hear it. He dodges a see-saw and almost falls onto the swing set, grabbing the chain link of one swing to hold himself up. He plops down into the seat. “Come push me!”

Alexei walks over, shrugging off his jacket and setting it on a nearby bench. He’s shaking his head and laughing. “You’re such child.” Getting behind Kent, he puts both hands on Kent’s back and says, “Not too high. You still tipsy, might fall off.”

Kent drops his head back so he can look at Alexei upside-down. “You’d catch me.”

Alexei’s smile goes soft. “I would. Are you ready?” At Kent’s nod, Alexei gives him a push.

It’s probably the sake that makes swinging in a darkened playground so much fun. Kent laughs and kicks his legs as he goes, telling Alexei, “Higher!” even though he knows it’s not going to happen. The motion is giving him a bit of vertigo, though not enough to make him fall. Every time he swings back, Alexei’s hands find him again, broad and warm and reassuring.

Eventually, Kent decides he’s had enough and stabs his feet at the ground to make himself stop. The gravel is probably not good for his oxfords, but they do slow him down. Kent hops off the swing. “Your turn.”

Alexei opens his mouth, halfway to objecting, but then his eyes find Kent’s smile and he stops. Smiles back. “Okay.” He gets on the swing, and Kent gets behind him.

“Not too high, Kent.”

“Got it. No space cadet Alexei.” Kent ducks to kiss the back of Alexei’s neck, since it’s there. “You know how to do this, right?”

Alexei snorts. “We are have swings in Russia, ptichka.” 

“What’s that mean?” Kent asks, and gives Alexei a gentle push. There’s a lot of Alexei to push. Kent’s always loved these little reminders of Alexei’s size. “I think you called me that before.”

“Da, I did. Is cute way to say ‘bird.’ Is like... pet name. Do you mind?”

“Of course not. How do you say it again?”

“Ptichka.”

“Peach-ka.”

“Close enough.” Alexei slows his swing and reaches out to tap the one next to him. “Swing with me, ptichka.”

“Peech-ka,” Kent tries again, and gets on the swing. The night air and the exertion of swinging and then pushing Alexei is helping him work off the sake. He kicks off the ground and joins Alexei as a human pendulum. They’re out of sync but only just. Kent says, “Teach me more Russian.”

“Okay.” Alexei thinks for a moment. “Этот мужчина платит за всё.”

It sounds like word salad. “What’s that mean?”

“Repeat, first. Etot muzhchina platnt za Vsyo.” He draws it out slowly, and then says each word individually, after which Kent repeats it.

“Etot, mu-mushina plat Vsyo.”

“Etot muzhchina.”

“Etot muzhchina.”

“Platnt za Vsyo.”

"Platnt za Vsyo.”

“Etot muzhchina platnt za Vsyo.”

“Etot muzhchina platnt za Vsyo.”

Alexei applauds. “You very fast learner.”

“Bet my accent is terrible, though.”

“Beginner accent for any language always is terrible,” Alexei says.

“So, what’s it mean?”

Wearing the biggest grin, Alexei says, “Means, ‘This gentleman will pay for everything.’”

Kent gapes at him, and then starts laughing. “Oh my fucking god, Alexei.”

“Is very useful phrase, I think.”

“Oh my fucking god.” Kent has to stop swinging so he doesn’t fall off while laughing. “Etot muzhchina platnt za Vsyo.”

“Yes.” Alexei stops swinging, too. “Of course, only useful if establishment is Russian.”

Kent snorts, still amused. “Guess I know where we’re going to eat next.”

Alexei shrugs. “If you like.”

Despite the obvious pleasure Alexei’s taken from pampering Kent in these last several months, Kent feels obligated to say, “You know I don’t expect you to pay for me all the time, right? I don’t mind, God no. But it’s not... um. It’s not a whatever-you-call-it, for us hooking up.” He waves his hand. “There’s a word for it, help me here.”

“Of us two, you are native English speaker,” Alexei replies, and then adds, “Do you mean ‘stipulation’?”

Kent snaps his fingers. Trust Alexei to know English words having to do with contracts and other such legal agreements. “Yes. It’s not a stipulation. I’m not fucking you for your money.”

Alexei chuckles wryly. “I know. You are fucking me for my ass.”

“It is a really superior ass.”

“You treat it very well.”

Alexei’s giving him bedroom eyes. Kent reaches over and clumsily swats his arm. “You missed your chance fucking me over the table at the restaurant. I’m not fingering you in a park.”

“We find nice bush. I’m be quiet.”

Kent swats him again. “Who are you, and what happened to the guy who stared me down after I suggested fucking in the men’s room at a wedding?”

“I am same guy. Just hungrier, more I’m with you.”

Kent looks at that soft smile and the pull of Alexei’s pants over his thighs and his crotch. “Babe, I’m too inebriated to turn you down right now, and I know you don’t wanna be arrested for public indecency. I’m feeling just stupid enough right now to blow you on the swings, so if you don’t want that in the headlines tomorrow...”

 This warning is met with laughter, and then Alexei is getting out of his swing and holding out a hand for Kent. “So let’s go home, ptichka, and you do as many nasty things to me as you’re like.”

Kent grabs the offered hand and lets Alexei haul him to his feet. “Babe, you have the best ideas.”

“I know. Is because I am best.”

“Fuck yeah, you are.”

Alexei retrieves his jacket and pulls it on. As they leave the park, he puts his arm back around Kent, as easily as if he’d never let go. “You are best too, you know.”

The warmth Kent feels right then has nothing to do with the sake.

[vertigokrp-blog1]

SUBMITTED FOR YOUR APPROVAL:

The case of one Im Seojoon, youth lost in the depths of countryside quaintness and simple delights. A 28-year-old spending days in the small suburbs of Muhan as a librarian, an upstanding citizen like many others in town. An unremarkable little story that takes odd turns when you take a second look. Because, in Muhan, nothing as it seems. In Muhan, you must trust no one.

         Im Seojoon is one with the vertigo.

CONTENT WARNING.

None.

THE STORY.

I. the forest.

his family has always been from there. the trees. that little hut. seojoon’s father says that the ims have lived here since the joseon dynasty, on the outskirts of muhan before muhan. it’s almost believable - the roof points to the sky, the brick walls around their little garden quiver with history. but things have changed, of course. the wood has been replaced, the walls repainted every five years, the forest not as friendly as it used to be. but it’s getting better. everything is always getting better.

II. baby-fat.

seojoon has always been likable. it’s in his face, in his laugh, in the way he moved through the world, carefree and unafraid. he might not have had the nicest clothes or the best grades, but he could tell a story. he told them like he knew they were true - cinderella really had existed, his dog really had eaten his homework. muhan was never too small for seojoon, never too big. he made himself happy with whatever he was given.

III. cheerleader.

he’s fourteen when he meets her. she’s new to the town and her clothes are always perfectly pressed. she smells like chanel and metal. they make fast friends - seojoon is friendly and she seems like she is, too, but this is just something different. they click the way people do in stories. seojoon loves it. he loves her. muhan loves them, their sweet teenage romance. they could do anything. she’s always been a little braver, a little darker than seojoon, pressing against her bonds of ‘be-kind be-quiet’ femininity. they do everything. not always good things, sometimes seojoon gets nervous, but she smiles and he would do anything to help her and her big dreams.

IV. the big sleep.

they’re seventeen. it’s one in the morning. she crawls out of her bed and out of the house. he’s waiting in the front lawn. she smiles. unlocks her father’s car. seojoon doesn’t really know how to drive - legally, he can’t - but he’s figured it out, mostly. they’ve practiced. she hasn’t told him her entire plan, but this is the first step, this is the part he can help with. she told him yesterday to drive to gwangju, so he does. the road is dark. he doesn’t really know what happened next, only reads the official report seven years later. when he wakes up. the story goes like this: teenage lovers trying to run away together. car crash. only one survivor. seven year coma. he’s a living vegetable. a miracle. he’s awake, but now everything is different.

or - that’s a little misleading. muhan hasn’t changed a bit, but seojoon flipped inside out. he walks like he’s always dreaming, his eyes never seem to focus. his hair is always messy, all his charm is gone. he tells the story again and again, but this time he’s the only one believing it.

THE TWIST.

im seojoon has two secrets, and he doesn’t know either of them. (but to be fair, there isn’t much he knows anymore.)

the first is something like this: there never was a car crash (at least not one with both of them in it), but there was a girl he loved. a girl with an imagination, a girl bored out of her mind. that night the car stopped on the farthest edges of muhan’s sprawling forest. (the forest had never liked her, and liked her even less after what happened.) she told seojoon to get out of the car. he did. she got what she wanted from him, her experiment a success. she told him to get back in the car. he started driving again, but only for a few seconds. (the forest hated that she made them hurt each other.) she disappeared. muhan found him again in the morning, dead to the world with his heart still beating. for seven years he slept. until she came back. she made him fall asleep, she made him open his eyes. it’s really her secret, but he’s the one keeping it.

seojoon’s second secret doesn’t entirely belong to him, either, and it’s even more unclear. there are parts of it everyone knows, though. the ims have been losing money and respect over the generations. seojoon’s grandparents died young and together, in the forest. seojoon’s father hadn’t grown up in the ims’ ancestral home, but in a nice, modern townhouse in the town’s eastern neighborhood. he moved his family there just as the gated community was finding its feet, lost his wife because of it, and told his son they’d been living in this crumbling, ancient house forever. seojoon ran off with a girl from jisewon and came back a quiet, sleepy shell of who he once was. maybe it’s not a secret. maybe we’re just looking at coincidences and trying to find a pattern. but there’s always the possibility that something’s here. only time will tell.

[hachidorinoko]

# all the odds >:3

50 headcanons || Accepting anything with an even number...!

Ya gotta be odd to be Number One!

OHHH BOY HERE WE GO… (the rest are under a cut because oh YES, I did all 25 of them and thoroughly enjoyed it.)

1. what’s your muse’s favourite album of all time / favorite artist?

Start with an easy one - Tenji’s favourite album is FAKE STAR ~I’m just a Japanese Fake Rocker~ by Kuroyume, and his favourite artist is Kuroyume’s lead singer Kiyoharu. Do NOT get him started on this topic of conversation because he Will. Not. Stop.

3. do they take baths or showers? do they prefer one over the other?

Showers to clean off, but Tenji loves a soak when he can. Back home in Gifu, his family have a traditional small tub which is heated from beneath by a wood burner to keep it warm so that the whole family can make use of it, one after another. He kinda misses it, but he’s also a big fan of onsen/sento, so since moving closer to Kamurocho, he goes there rather than waste water at home.

5. how many blankets / pillows do they like to have on their bed?

Tenji likes the idea of having a bed covered in fluffy blankets and pillows, but in reality he tends to kick them all away in the night so he’s given up bothering. In his apartment, he has a futon bed frame with a light comforter and a sheet - if he could choose, he’d just have a roll-up futon, but as he’s living in a furnished apartment at the moment, he’s stuck with the bed taking up too much space. (He does keep one fluffy blanket in the cupboard for winter though - cheaper than using the heater!)

7. do they wake up groggy or alert? do they like mornings?

Very groggy and gravelly until he’s had a coffee. Mornings are the WORST as far as Tenji’s concerned. He’s absolutely a night owl, and will stay out all night and get the first train home to sleep if he can. Generally, the only time he sees 7am is if he’s approaching it from the other side. He thinks 11am is an early start…

9. what do they smell like? do they use perfume or cologne?

Cheap cologne - and far too much of it, most of the time. Because it’s budget, it wears off pretty quick so he’s constantly re-applying it. He likes fruity scents on other people, but his own choice of cologne is quite… distinctly aftershavey, with sandalwood, neroli and vanilla. His favourite is Chanel Platinum Egoiste, but it’s so expensive he’s been carrying an almost-empty bottle around for a year in the hope one of his customers might buy it for him as a gift. (It’s nose-curdlingly strong, so it’s probably for the best that he doesn’t have it because he‘s usually half-drowned in it!!)

11. bar soap or liquid? do they like loofahs?

Liquid! He’s somebody who really hates the idea of finding hairs on the soap, and he’s so not about that arse/face soap life 😂 and as for loofahs, he could tell tales of loofahs which would make your hair curl in his Dragon’s Ward/Fourth Chairman verse, phew! 😳 Overall he’s not exactly a fan of bathroom paraphernalia because he feels that most of it just collects mold, but he has a pair of exfoliating gloves that he swears by — because if you wear that much fake tan, you gotta be smooooooth!

13. do they like the room cold or hot when they sleep?

Cold! He’s big on cuddling close for warmth, but he’s also one of those evil creatures with ice feet and yes, he will put them on your back when you’re least expecting it. He’s quite weak to temperature change and tends to overheat in the night though, so a cold room suits him better and makes it easier to regulate. Just don’t be surprised if you wake up wearing him like a scarf because he was having a cold shiver.

15. do they know how to drive? do they like to drive?

Tenji is a paper driver! His parents paid for him to learn and take his test, but he’s never owned a car and he hasn’t driven since. He doesn’t really enjoy driving much, and when he moved to study in Yokohama, he found that the transport systems in the bay and Tokyo areas are so good that there was never any need to bother with his own wheels. His friend Arata loves driving though, so they have hired a car together and driven out to the beaches in Chiba a couple of times. Tenji always says he’ll help with the driving, but he never does…

17. do they have pets? what kind? dogs, cats, etc?

No pets, and they’re not really on his radar. He likes animals well enough, but he never had pets at home growing up so it doesn’t really occur to him to get one. If he had a pet though, I imagine it would be a small ‘fashion breed’ dog like a pomeranian or french bulldog that he could carry around in a bag on his shoulder and spoil with all the snazzy accessories and tasty treats.

19. what are their phobias? do they have any at all?

Tenji doesn’t really have any phobias as such, but he’s a small fish in a big ocean, so he’s viably scared of quite a lot of things. The things which truly frighten him and keep him awake at night tend to be quite philosophical - he fears being forgotten, being outshone in the eyes of those he cares about.

21. did they have any fears growing up that they’ve since conquered?

Tenji has always had a sort of logical/illogical fear of falling off his bicycle, and it’s one of those things which is sort of like vertigo - the more mental space he gives the concept, the more he has that strange urge to engineer a crash outcome. As he’s gotten older and as he uses his bike more often to get to and from the station/supermarket, it has lessened, but it’s still very much present if he were to give it headspace.

23. how do they show fear? sweating, shaking, blankness, anger, etc?

It’s very obvious to see when Tenji is scared - he shrinks into that fight-or-flight pose as if ready to flee, and becomes visibly anxious, looking around, licking his lips. He tends to just start talking at this point - yammering on about anything, pointing out weird details, making odd conversation to try and distract from his fright. Saying that, talking is pretty much his coping mechanism for everything.

25. do they get scared easily? does loud noises, shouting, etc, scare them?

Yes, Tenji gets scared pretty easily. Sudden loud noises definitely make him jump - you’ll probably see him hit the deck if something goes bang close to him. That said, loud places like clubs, gigs, raves and parties don’t bother him at all - it’s just that sudden sharp shouts/screams/alarms etc will make him jump something awful. Good luck extricating his grip from around your neck if he jumps up on your shoulders to hide. 😂

27. what do they never, ever want to speak of, ever?

I can’t tell you, or I’d have to kill you……… truthfully, not so much, but there are certain things he would never tell certain people. For instance, he would go to extreme lengths to keep his parents from finding out that he dropped out of university after just one year and frittered his student loan (and extra money they sent him) on fancy clothes and nights out to live his host lifestyle. He’s not even sure what they would do if they found out, but he wouldn’t be able to cope with the weight of his father’s disappointment.

29. is there something they’d like to change about themselves physically?

Quite a lot, really, though most of it he changes cosmetically. He would like to be quite a bit taller, and so he always wears heeled boots to try and add a couple of inches. He’s 163cm/5’6”. He would also like to be naturally tanned, but he is quite pale-skinned really so he slathers on fake tan to get the look he wants - most of the collars of his shirts are stained orange as a result. He dyes his hair and wears contacts - he’s happy with how he looks with all these alterations, but it belies a dissatisfaction in his natural appearance, which is a shame.

31. do they have good fashion sense? or do they just wear whatever?

I don’t know about *good* fashion sense, but Tenji definitely has a passion for fashion! He wears mostly whites/greys/blacks and muted hues like khaki with silver accessories, and favours a distressed look, torn jeans and fashionably ripped shirts/sweaters. He’s a walking Men’s Egg model and is very taken in by trends - he will buy things because they’re ‘cool’, and then never wear them again if they fall out of style. A victim of fast fashion, he does have a few timeless things which he will always wear no matter what.

33. are they too hard on themselves over the little things?

Not so much hard on himself - he doesn’t really tend to think too much when he doesn’t have to - but Tenji finds it very hard to take rejection/correction from other people. He takes criticism very personally and can get very defensive and upset over the tiniest thing.

35. are they possessive over their things? or over other people? both?

Not particularly. You can bet if he lends you something precious, he’ll be asking for it back, but generally he doesn’t mind sharing. Arata tends to walk all over him and take his stuff, and he just kinda lets him do it because he doesn’t like confrontation. As for people - so long as he feels like he is important in a relationship, he’s not particularly possessive in a general sense - however, he can get extremely jealous if he feels that somebody is getting more affection/attention than he is. (This goes hand in hand with his fear of being forgotten or left behind - ‘what if he/she likes them more than they like me??’)

37. what do they think about polyamorous relationships? would they do it?

Being that his job requires the upkeep and management of many semi-intimate relationships (some closer than others, generally more romantic than physically intimate), Tenji can see the value in polyamory. He probably would consider entering a polyamorous relationship, but there would have to be a lot of communication and reassurance involved in it. Polyamory requires a certain amount of maturity which he doesn’t really have, but could be guided into if his partner(s) had more experience. He’s kind of wound up in a polyamorous relationship in his Diamondé verse - he’s been tied up with Sakurazawa while Sakurazawa is publicly with Paprika. Both Tenji and Paprika are aware of this, and are aware that the other partner supplies something they cannot or would not want to. The communication between Sakurazawa and his partners is terrible, but Tenji and Paprika stay in touch and have a relationship of their own (whilst neither romantic nor physical) which gives this arrangement some balance it might otherwise lack - Paprika understands Tenji’s immaturity and weakness, and tries to protect and mother him to an extent. Paprika does all the heavy lifting in that particular relationship - she is too kind for her own good, but an incredibly strong woman trying to hold her own heart together. Tenji is totally oblivious to the effort required in holding up the sky in that sense.

39. do they have siblings? if so, how many? do they like them?

Nope, Tenji’s an only child. Mummy and daddy’s perfect little boy… if only they knew.

41. where would they want to live if they could live anywhere? why?

A swanky penthouse in Kamurocho! He’s not particularly imaginative when it comes to that kind of thing - once he has a goal in mind, he will plough everything into achieving it. Right now, that’s Become The Best Host In Tokyo, and everything he wants are the trappings which go with that. He’s got grand designs on a walk-in wardrobe with automated hangars… heated floors, smart lighting, you know the drill.

43. do they like living alone or with another person / other people?

Tenji currently lives in a share house with roommates that he doesn’t know and barely sees outside of passive aggressive notes on the fridge, and he’s not really a fan of the setup. That said, he would relish living with friends or partners, but they might need a spare room to get a break from him following them around and chatting at all hours of the night 😂 ‘ Whatcha watching? Is it good? Did you see the first one? Is that Ishikawa? Man, did you see…’

45. what’s their dream job / profession? do they have one?

Tenji loves being a host more than anything else in the world (to an alarming extent, if you ask his peers.) If you ask him, he’ll tell you that’s his dream job. Besides that though - and he has no real intention to pursue this at this stage - he loves acting, and thinks he would make a great talk show host/TV personality. If he got scouted, he would totally go for it! (There was a host TV personality about 10 years ago who always wore a white suit and carried a bunch of red roses - his gimmick was mainly just flirting with the camera, I wish I could remember his name cus I’d show a picture otherwise - Tenji feels like a guy like that is wasting his opportunities, but he’s also a little jealous that a guy like that can get such airtime.)

47. do they like tv shows or movies? or neither?

Tenji is more of a movies guy - hasn’t got the attention span for a box set, he gets twitchy and distracted - but he loves variety TV shows, the daytime and late night dross. He learns a lot of odd facts and trivia from these shows, and they prove useful in his day job. How else would one discover the signature dish of Ehime?? And that Tsuyoshi from SMAP is allergic to peas!? Or how they flush toilets in space???

49. do they have a creative outlet? if so, what is it?

Tenji is more of a consumer than a creator - the closest to having a creative outlet is probably karaoke, which he LOVES. He doesn’t write music or play an instrument, but he sure can sing, and he’ll sing just about anything so if you need a duet partner, he’s your man!